Major question number two, immediately following “Where are you going to live?” is “What are you going to do [for work?]” A fair question.

We three each started the endeavor with different amounts of money banked, but by no means would it last forever. Our respective reserves would sustain us anywhere from three months to a year. We all came out to start careers in the entertainment business, but with different end goals, different tolerances for risk, and different relationships with money and work.

By the end of the first month, however, everyone found employment. Everyone took a different route, one fitting his plan for long-term success, and reflective of his personality:

Teddy

Teddy stood up in disgust after an episode of Entourage. “That show’s so unrealistic,” he said.

Which part? The gaggles of beautiful women trolling in and out of their lives? The rapid ascent towards fame? The…

“The Agency. No one’s wearing headphones. In an agency, everyone’s always got headphones attached to their face, because that’s all they do. They’re on the phone all the time. And everyone’s gorgeous on the show. In an agency all the assistants are getting fat because they spend all day at their computers, talking on the phone…”

Teddy started his entertainment career the same way he started furnishing his apartment: Craigslist. He took several unpaid production assistant gigs, mostly graveyard shifts an hour drive away. During the day, he slept, explored Venice Beach, and harassed his current roommate about getting him an internship at the talent agency where he worked.

“That’s probably why Rob finally made sure I got an interview,” Teddy said. “He got sick of hearing me complain all the time. Figured it was the only way to shut me up.”

So while the experience was the only thing Teddy got out of his free work as a production assistant, the harassment paid dividends. He interviewed for an unpaid internship with Principato-Young Entertainment.

“The manager slammed a stack of resumes on his desk. Told me every single one of these people were applying for the same position; why hire me?” he reminisced, after the interview. “I don’t really remember what I told him. I think I said I was a worker, and I would do anything they needed.”

He started a week later – nine to eleven hours a day, five days a week; reading coverage, office work, and shadowing assistants. His salary consists of lunch and all the Red Bull he can drink. Plus the one can of Red Bull he takes home with him, at the end of the day.

“For recycling,” he explained. “It’s five cents a can. At the end of the month, I might make two dollars from this internship.”

Though he won’t admit it, he’s gotten a great deal more than two dollars in compensation. The assistants liked his work; they’ve put his resume in contention for other positions (some paid, some not) – positions he’d have no shot at by himself, against others with far more experience in Hollywood. He most recently interviewed for a paid assistant position with Creative Management – after only a month in the industry.

“They all say the same thing when they look at my resume: ‘How’d you start working with Principato-Young? You have no experience in Hollywood, or in the entertainment business.’” He laughs. “Then I explain – again – how I got it.”

Before that, he interviewed for an internship position with a branch of Sony – Laurence Mark Productions. Their office is located behind a black gate in downtown Culver City – the same gate we passed on our first trip into the city.

He turned it down.

Eric

“At the Liberal Arts and Sciences Honors Convocation, upon calling each person to walk across the stage, the speaker gave a mini one-sentence bio about what they were doing next.

It went something like this:

Med School, Med School, plans to attend Med School, Law School, Grad School, Grad School, plans to attend Med School, teach English abroad, Med School, Law School, teach English abroad, Hollywood, Med School or Law School, plans to attend Law School, Law School, plans to attend school in the future, Med School…

As they say in Sesame Street: which of these things is not like the others?

Hollywood even got a little snicker from the crowd.”

A few months after sharing this anecdote, Eric settled into the apartment in Culver City. He set about finishing a script and finding his “in” into the entertainment business – damn the costs.

“I’ve got enough money to get me by in Los Angeles, for a year, without having to work,” he explained. “So I’m going to focus on writing, and working where I can. For free, or whatever, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m working in the industry. That’s what I came out here for.”

That attitude – and one or two phone calls from a friend working for MGM – landed him two internship offers before the first month finished.

One with Village Roadshow Pictures, and another with – and of course, the turn – Sony Pictures.

Right down the street.

He accepted both.

Finding Restaurant Work in Los Angeles

The plan: toe in the water.

The objective: sustainability. Restaurant employment that’d cover expenses at minimum number of hours put in. Requires calculating expenses per month.

Focused Search

1. Specializing refines your efforts. If you’re fortunate to have knowledge of a specific cuisine, narrow your search to this cuisine type. Start off with specialization, then expand your search – the basic skills of serving are universal – it’s specialist knowledge that stands out.
   My focus, from most specific to general: Japanese cuisine, Asian cuisine, fine dining.
2. Location. The closer, the better; walking distance is ideal. Pick a certain radius, and don’t consider restaurants beyond this field. Commuting in Los Angeles is exactly as terrible as others say. As one friend put it, “Expect grid lock during rush hour, but don’t expect clear roads any time.”
   My focus: Culver City, then within a three mile radius (West Hollywood, Santa Monica, etc.)

Search

1. Craigslist. Every restaurant that fit the above criteria, an e-mail and resume was sent. Below is a draft of the e-mail:
   “To [Restaurant] Management
   My name is [Name], and I’m replying to the posting on Craigslist for servers.
   I served at a high-end Japanese restaurant in New York. I helped open that restaurant [link to the restaurant] and served for two years before moving to Los Angeles.
   Prior to that, I have eight years experience serving Asian cuisine.
   My Asian-cuisine background gives me the experience and foundation to share what [Restaurant] offers to the greater Los Angeles area. [Insert personalized strength/weakness here. If weakness, include…] However I don’t see this as a weakness – I see it as an opportunity to learn and renew my enthusiasm for [type of food] cuisine.
   I work hard. I work fast. I believe strong communication and awareness of your surroundings make the difference in this industry.
   Below is the link to my portfolio and my traditional resume.
   [Portfolio Link, Resume]

Preferred method of contact is by phone: [phone number]. Or you can reach me at this e-mail.
Thanks for your time. I hope we have the opportunity to work together.
Sincerely,
[Name]”
A form of this e-mail was sent to four Asian-cuisine restaurants: Latin-Japanese fusion, a modern Japanese, a Korean BBQ, and an Asian/Chinese fine dining. The initial draft took twenty minutes; afterwards, each e-mail took five to ten minutes to personalize.

1. Google Maps. The name and address of every Japanese restaurant in Culver City was recorded, and website researched (to get a feel for the restaurant.) Then, plans made to eat lunch at every one, and after the meal, ask if they were hiring, and name drop (not resume drop.)

Execution/Results

1. Began with the second “best fit” restaurant – to practice my pitch for the first “best fit.” Asked if either were hiring, both said “no,” and I left my information anyway. No resume drop.
2. On a whim, printed a resume to drop at a Thai restaurant – solely because they were down the street. The manager said they weren’t hiring – dropped a resume anyway, circling pertinent employment history.
3. On Day Three, received a call to interview for a serving position at the modern Japanese restaurant, located in Santa Monica. Interviewed and hired the next day, with training to commence the day after. Stopped actively searching for work at this point.
4. Five days later, received a call from the local Thai restaurant, asking to come train. I rearranged my schedule to work/train at both restaurants.
5. After two training days, decided to drop the restaurant in Santa Monica. The local Thai restaurant was too convenient to pass on, despite belief the Japanese restaurant would garner better pay.
6. The Scorecard:
   1. Restaurants applied to: 7
   2. Restaurants applied on Craigslist: 4
   3. Restaurants I dined with first, then dropped name: 2
   4. Physical resumes dropped: 1
   5. Days spent unemployed: 4
   6. Serving positions acquired: 2
7. Lessons Learned
   1. Japanese restaurants in the area are Japanese-owned, most with Japanese sushi chefs. Directly contradictory to New York/New Jersey area, where many are Chinese owned, with Chinese sushi chefs. Knowledge of any Chinese dialect has proven to be of zero advantage.
   2. Dropped the “secured” job too quickly. Would suggest holding onto the definite gig longer than two training days with the other restaurant. The fact it worked out has a great deal to do with luck, and little with specific action on my part.
   3. It’s doubtful the portfolio created prior to moving out to Los Angeles helped my cause, or made me stand out, in any significant way. Far more useful: specialization, hustle, open availability, luck.

Conclusion

You’re not capable of anything until you do it.

The satisfaction doesn’t come from the accomplishments of this past month. It comes from seeing how what appeared to be a huge, arduous task can be accomplished: with no special skills, intelligence, or talents. Just hustle, shoe leather, and yes, luck.

Satisfaction comes from knowing – regardless of how things actually turned out – that you were ready for the struggle. You were prepared to slum it in a dingy studio flat, sharing a single bedroom and bathroom, where you could piss and butter toast at the same time (not with the piss.)

And if things worked out better than you imagined, if you got lucky… who are you to complain? You can only enjoy it while you can, knowing that “this too, shall pass.”

Return to One Month In – Part One

Related posts:

1. One Month In – Part One
2. Restaurant Work in Los Angeles
3. Internships – Part One: Getting an Interview

We followed the GPS’ purple arrows into Culver City, our modern, corrupted version of Yellow Brick not even Gregory Maguire could dream up. Teddy pointed out the window at the formidable white building, fortified behind a tall, black fence. It’d only be less inviting if the wrought-iron was composed of ivory tusks, pillaged from a majestic, prehistoric creature, and curved outwards.

“Look, there’s Sony Studios,” he said. Their message was clear: we might consider ourselves California residents – we might ride skateboards, eat avocado-topped pizza, and call Culver City home – but we were still outsiders. And don’t forget it.

That’s how we’re going to get our start, I said. What we’re going to do is hop that fence…

“Sneak into the Sony lot, and get jobs as production assistants,” Teddy finished. “That would sound good when they write books about us.” He turned back, watched the building fade. “How sweet would it be to work there, though, huh? To work right down the street from where we lived? We’d beat the whole, ‘commuting around Los Angeles’ problem.”

This is a recap.

One month after that discussion.

One month after everything came to a head: hundreds of conversations about leaving home, 3,000 miles across the states, a few bags of clothes, a couple of skateboards, and no apartment, no job, no plan to speak of later… to examine what we built, and how to effectively replicate and improve on those efforts.

The Apartment

Teddy looked at five or six apartments before settling on the current location. The search spanned across Venice, Los Feliz, Echo Park, and Long Beach. It was halfway through his month sublet he found the apartment in Culver City:

2 Bedroom, 2 Bath, 2 Balconies, kitchen, living area, at the end of a cul de sac, minutes from downtown Culver City.

Costs of Furnishing:

Three sofas – one on the balcony: $25
Carpet: $2
Dining Room Table: $10
Dining Room Chairs (4): $15
Bar Stools (2): $45
Entertainment center: free
Television: free

Save for the bar stools – everything was purchased or picked up for free on Craigslist.

Use Craigslist at the start, when you’re of limited or no financial means.

Transport is the challenge – the largest vehicle available was the 2006 Corolla, which you couldn’t use for sofas, tables, etc.

The ideal solution is moving to Los Angeles with a pick-up truck.

The second best is borrowing a friend’s.

The last resort, the awful solution, is to rent a U-Haul for the day, and camp Craigslist, hoping to pick up everything needed in a single day. This is not a good plan.

It’s barely a mediocre one.

Some ideas to make it work anyway:

1. Do it on Saturday or Sunday – more people have day offs, more likely to post on Craigslist, and more likely to be home.
2. Reserve the U-Haul a few days in advance. Set yourself up with an all-day rental, so you can drop it back off the following day. As long as you drop-off before the store officially opens, there should be no extra charge. Ask.
3. Camp Craigslist the night before. Try setting up definite appointments for the next day. It’s not easy – most free stuff is first come, first serve.
4. Know exactly what you need, and its priority. What’s the most important item? Have a plan, in case you must make a choice between two pieces of furniture.
5. Start early. Camp Craigslist first thing in the morning, and stay on it. If you have an internet-ready phone, keep refreshing the browser in the car, and call prospects as soon as possible. Free moves quickly.
6. Have cash. Don’t stop at the bank.
7. Know how much you’re willing to spend on any piece of furniture. With only one day to acquire everything, you’re not in a strong position to haggle.
8. Use a GPS.
9. Hope you get lucky, and everything you need becomes available. Going through the process again would be frustrating and time-consuming.

Do you have to get lucky to get everything on one shot?

Yes.

But… better lucky than good.

Renting the U-Haul and buying gas, split three ways, cost $37 each.

The Bedroom

There’s something Bohemian about grinding out the craft, perched on the floor, readjusting butt cheeks every ten minutes to beat back the pins and needles.

Teddy walked into the room Eric and I shared. He watched Eric type at his fold-out table, seated in his leather executive-style chair. Three feet to his left, and three feet closer to the ground, I typed on my laptop. My monitor squatted atop of a filing box – a makeshift desk.

Teddy caught my eye. “That’s the struggle I want to see,” he said admiringly.

Romantic struggle or not – at some point, you want a desk. Your neck gets tired, your eyes get tired, and your butt, that gets tired, too.

You want a desk and a chair and a bed – not the floor and an under-inflated air mattress.

Costs of Furnishing

Desk: $50
Chair: $50
Mattress: $50
Bed Springs: Free
Lamp: Free
Bookshelf: Free

Individual cost to furnish the apartment, including U-haul costs: ~$200

Proceed to One Month In – Part Two

Related posts:

1. One Month In – Part Two
2. How Much to Save Before Moving to Los Angeles

Skip the foreplay, and get right to the lode like a one-pump-chump:

What’s the magic number?

The thought pervades skulls of anyone with the itch to head west. It’s not the first to bud, not while you’re California Dreaming in upstate New York or Kalamazoo, Michigan. Surfing, or California Gurls carves that notch in the bed post. But the question lurks in the darkness like a venereal disease on a piece of OPP. It’s the first obstacle, the camouflaged, muffler-scraping speed bump standing between you and your life’s ambitions.

“How much should I bank before I move to Los Angeles?”

If you’re looking for a magic number, you can find it. It’s a click away; you’ll pull up Search Results 1-10,000, each page with listing from hocus to pocus.

“Expect to pay $1,000 per month per person… minimum,” one source says. Or that you’ll need $7,000 to get set-up in Los Angeles. Even $20,000 is a paltry bag of loot for this cruel, hard town: only the first $10,000 is for trying to make it in Los Angeles.

The other $10,000?

For re-rebuilding your life when you fail.

Who’s got the time to put together $20,000 – not for a down payment on a home, but to relocate to a crappy loft or one bedroom apartment? What recent graduate up to their nostrils in student loans, consumer debt, and the nasty coke habit they picked up in Law School has the means to scrape up two stacks?

The figure – $20,000 – isn’t even the highest number suggested, but any newly minted graduated with $35,000 banked obviously knows something the rest of us don’t.

People asking the “magic number” question (aka “How much should I bank?”) are searching for glass knives, but there’s no clear cut answer. This post will address the question, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface, floating like a tectonic of earth and ice, is the real issue at hand: “How badly do you want it?”

Calculations

Disclaimer: The author is not a personal finance expert. Anything pertaining to finances written here is based solely on personal experience, and should be executed at your own risk.

No passes or loading or Hindu Shuffles required to find your magic number – just calculation. Below is the lay:

1. Calculate your expenses per month. Start by creating a balance sheet: shuffle Revenues to the left, and electric slide Expenses to the right. For the purposes of this example, ignore Revenues completely, and focus all your attention on Expenses.
   Gather all those recurring expenses: rent, monthly student loans payments, health insurance, car insurance, server costs, cell phone bill, gym membership, and any other expense that comes in at a regular amount in a regular period.
2. Next budget regularly incurred expenses of indefinite increments. Gas is one example: you know the pumps’ will cause you to lose serious hit points throughout the month, but cumulative carnage is unknown. Miscellaneous expenses fall in this category, which can be broken to subcategories: Groceries, Alcohol, Dining Out, Clothes, etc. Creating a separate spread sheet to record these expenses, then referring to it in the Balance Sheet keeps the data organized.
3. The final category listed with Expenses is Savings. Why is Savings an Expense? Because your wise, financially capable dome adheres to the “pay-yourself-first” mentality like a cheap Internet banner. Treating savings as an expense automates the saving process, and forces you to save even when you don’t necessarily have the funds to do so. Too often, saving with the money left over post-Bill Pay results in goose eggs instead of a nest egg.

Consider contributing to a few savings accounts on a monthly basis:  the first, an emergency fund for those minor problems that require you to throw a little money at it to go away (car maintenance, exploding pipes, bail money, etc.) Second, start contributing to an IRA as early as possible. A discussion on the powers of an early start and compounding is far beyond the scope of this post, but know this: it’s huge. There are two kinds of IRA’s: Traditional and Roth. For an in-depth comparison, see Get Rich Slowly’s post.

Carry-the-one addition (or a =SUM function in a spreadsheet) quickly determines total expenses per month. Multiply this figure by three, then add it to your expected move-out costs and start-up costs (see below) to calculate your magic number: the bottom-of-the-barrel, asphalt scraping, bare minimum amount of quiche baking in the oven before moving to Los Angeles.

Start-Up Costs

These are the costs any new resident or Los Angeles transplant will incur to make it big in Hollywood. Referring to the physical goods mentioned below as necessities would be a stretch (they’re not) but they do go a long way towards living comfortably. The list moves from inelastic (you’ll almost definitely incur these costs) to elastic (can get away with not purchasing) costs:

1. Security Deposit and first month’s rent
2. Broker’s fee (if you work through a broker)
3. Food – you’ll eat out more if you don’t have any place to store groceries
4. Gas – double the dollars allocated; there’s a lot of driving to do the first month
5. Furniture – start with something as simple as one air bed, and a fold-up table and chair. As you settle in, you can acquire other comforts: lamps, dish sets, wine glasses, a kitchen table, a television set, etc.
6. Pots and pans

Be willing and eager to hunt for the elastic items on Craigslist. You’re not setting up shop in your dream home. You are not taking tips from TLC or HGTV. Martha Stewart is not your hero. You’re hustling and struggling and sculpting without stone, which means you’ll take what get (“and like it, you bet!”) It’ll get you by the first few months, at which point, if you’re flowing like the carpool lane through gridlock, feel free to upgrade.

Cutting Costs

In the early stages, it’s far easier to work on lowering expenses than increasing revenue. The consequences are compounded when income is irregular at best, zero at the worst. Still, our thoughts usually turn to making more as the solution, instead of spending less. Before moving, cut this mentality out of your mind. Create a strategy, or battle plan if you will, of your actions to cut down on those expenses, temporarily even, at least until you have some income:

1. Keep the miscellaneous expense costs to a minimum. Refrain from expensive habits: dining out, drinking, drugs, or buying non-essentials (clothes, shoes, gear and gadgets.) Every month you concentrate on paying the rent and sustaining your body is another month to do what you set out to do.
2. Keep gas costs down. You’ll drive everywhere in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t methods to save gas. If the grocery store or the beach is close by (set a miles distance e.g. 3 miles, 5 miles) try biking or skateboarding there instead of taking the car. Avoid rush hour like a bad Jackie Chan movie; your car will idle for two hours with nothing to show for it but 100 yards of pavement and half a tank of gas.  Go to work earlier and leave later – schlep over to a café and read for an hour before heading home, after traffic lightens.
3. Temporarily reduce your contributions to your student loans. If things get real hard up, defer the loans for a year.
4. Temporarily cut out your health insurance coverage (not recommended, and should only be implemented as a last resort.)
5. Cut back on savings. If flies directly in the face of the “pay-yourself-first” mentality, but you may need to do it temporarily in the beginning. As soon as you think you’re able to, start saving again.

Some ideas to cut down on start-up costs:

1. You might not be set-up with a place when first touching down in Los Angeles, since it’s difficult to find an apartment without being in the area. Do not assume, however, that subletting (which locks you down for a month, plus your security deposit) is the only option. Instead, you can:
   1. Crash with a friend (or a friend of a friend) for a few days
   2. Couchsurf
   3. Stay at a hostel
   4. Camp at a state beach or park
   5. Boondock at Wal-Mart’s (not the most comfortable or safest, but feasible)

All the while, aggressively apartment hunting – stealing Internet if necessary, but doing what it takes to find a place to settle.

1. Steal Internet. Offer to pay your neighbors $20 per month for their password. Or find a nearby B&N or a Panera and use the Internet there.
2. Buy only the essentials when you arrive: air mattress, pots and pans, food. Other than those items, Craigslist everything you can, a little at a time.

More Information?

The articles on personal finance are wide and varied and more complete than could ever be possibly covered here. A few excellent places to start are:

Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to be Rich

J.D. Roth’s Get Rich Slowly

Tim Ferris’ Investment Series – start with Rethinking Investing, and work your way through the content

Conclusion

Examining your financial situation is a crucial step for going coast-to-coast, but there’s nothing magical about that “magic number.” Money in the bank is just money in the bank; the real magic happens when you ask yourself: How bad do you want it?

Shift the lens from the distraction (“Do I have enough money?”) to the real issue (“What do I really want?”) opens eyes and doors. You’ll realize it’s less about finances and more about comfort level. To some, these cutbacks may seem absurd, impossible, or damned dangerous: “What do you mean, boondock at Wal-Mart’s? You mean, sleep in my car in the parking lot? Don’t be ridiculous.” If it does seem ridiculous, don’t do it.

Far more ridiculous, however, is living life without a passion. Or worse, having a passion but not willing to make the sacrifices to pursue it. If you want it bad enough, you’ll make it on pennies. If you lack the focus or the drive, all the money in the bank won’t get you there.

Related posts:

1. Restaurant Work in Los Angeles
2. One Month In – Part One