The Myth That Won’t Die
‘Creatives are bad with money.’
How many times have you heard that one?
Here’s the truth: creatives aren’t bad with money. They’ve just been shut out of the conversation. Finance has been dressed up in jargon, gatekept by accountants in grey suits, and treated like some secret club you weren’t invited to.
But guess what? You can learn this. And you should, because your creativity deserves to be profitable.
My Story: From 23-Year-Old Dreamer to Numbers-Obsessed Founder
When I started my fashion label Maaike at 23, I was not ‘good with money.’
We didn’t know how to price correctly. Our margins were tiny. We had no idea what was ‘healthy’ or what other brands were doing. So we guessed. And we guessed wrong.
But here’s the kicker: every collection, we learned.
👉 We adjusted our pricing
👉 We improved our margins
👉 We slowly got better
Did we nail it straight away? Hell no. But like anything else, design, photography, making, you get better with practice. Money is a skill, not a personality trait.
Money Stories: Why It’s Not Your Fault
A lot of how we behave with money has nothing to do with business ability. It comes from what we were exposed to as kids.
By the age of seven, your ‘money story’ is already forming. Maybe you heard:
👉 ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’
👉 ‘Rich people are greedy’
👉 ‘We can’t afford that’
Those beliefs sink in, and they shape how you price, spend, and even how you feel about profit.
Here’s the thing: just because you absorbed those beliefs early doesn’t mean you’re stuck with them. Conditioning is powerful, but it can be rewritten. Like building a muscle, it takes consistency, but you can do it.
The Reframe: You’re Not Bad With Money
You’re not bad with money. You’ve just never been taught.
Numbers aren’t scary once you actually understand them. The more you practice, whether it’s tracking one key metric, setting prices with intention, or carving out a weekly ‘money date’ to check in on your finances, the easier it gets. (More on all of those below.)
Creatives don’t need to apologise for wanting profit.
Profit = sustainability
Profit = freedom
Profit = being able to keep creating
Your creativity is worth it.
Action Step: Start Small
Ask yourself: what’s one money belief I’ve been carrying since childhood that doesn’t serve me anymore?
Write it down. Challenge it. Replace it with something more useful:
🙃 Old belief: ‘I’m just not good with money.’
🙂 New belief: ‘Money is a skill, and I can learn it.’
Then pick one habit to start this week. Here are three to choose from, in order of size:
Start a weekly money date. Block out 30–60 minutes every week, same time, same day, no skipping. Make a coffee. Open your accounting software. Then work through this list:
Revenue vs target: How is this week tracking against your goal? If you’re behind, what are the specific actions you’re going to take to close that gap? Don’t just note it, decide.
Gross margin: How is it tracking for the month? If it’s dropped, why? Have you been discounting? Did a supplier cost go up? The margin doesn’t lie.
Cashflow: What’s coming up in the next 30 days? Provisional tax? A piece of equipment you need? Check your subscriptions while you’re at it, there’s almost always one you forgot about that you can cancel.
Outstanding invoices: Follow up on anything overdue. If you haven’t already, set up automatic invoice reminders in Xero so this happens without you having to manually chase.
Time-block your week: Before you close the laptop, block out the tasks that will actually move the needle on your business. Not the admin spiral, the work that grows it.
You’re not trying to solve every problem in one sitting. You’re just staying informed and making one clear decision at a time. That habit alone changes the game.
Track one key number. If you’re not sure which one to start with, start with your gross margin. It tells you more about the health of your business than almost any other figure, and it’s where most pricing problems show up first. If you don’t know yours, that’s your homework this week.
Read your P&L once a month. Even if it’s just a 10-minute skim. Get familiar with the shape of it. What’s going in, what’s going out, and where’s the gap. Over time, it stops feeling like a foreign language and starts feeling like useful information.
Tiny steps. Big shifts.
FAQs
I look at my bank account and immediately feel sick. Is that normal? Very. But avoidance makes it worse. The goal isn’t to love your numbers, it’s to get comfortable enough to face them regularly. That discomfort fades faster than you’d think, especially once you start seeing the patterns.
My accountant says everything is fine, but I still feel like I’m always broke. Why? Because most accountants look backwards, what did you earn last year? Financial advisory is different. It’s about looking forward: what do you need to do next month, next quarter, next year? If your numbers feel okay on paper but wrong in practice, you probably need planning, not just compliance.
What’s a healthy gross margin for a product-based creative business? For fashion wholesale, you need at least 50% to cover your costs and have anything left over. If you’re below that, you’re essentially subsidising your stockists. I’ve worked with brands sitting at 30%, it’s more common than you’d think, and it’s usually the first thing we fix.
Can I really ‘learn’ this stuff, or do I just need to hire someone? Both. You should understand your own numbers well enough to have an informed conversation about them, even if someone else manages the day-to-day. The goal isn’t for you to become an accountant. It’s for you to stop being afraid of the numbers that run your business.
You’re not bad with money. You just haven’t had the right support.
If any of this resonated, the avoidance, the confusion, the feeling that everyone else has figured it out except you, I want you to know: you’re not behind. You’ve just been left out of a conversation that was never designed to include you.
That’s what Waffle is here to change. Every month in the newsletter I share practical, jargon-free advice to help you understand your numbers better. No suits, no shame, no waffle.
