Ten Money Questions for Liz Rizzo

Nina Smith — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:18:03 -0600

In this week’s Ten Money Questions, we speak with Liz Rizzo, one of BlogHer’s Contributing Editors for Sex & Relationships. She also blogs at Everyday Goddess. Liz lives in Los Angeles, dates a hunky actor, and aims to direct television. She also has a great money story and like most Hollywood aspirants she’s trying to get by on a budget and pave her way to success in LA. Enjoy!

1. You moved to Los Angeles to direct films. Has the money followed?
Actually, if I had one adage for aspiring directors, it would be that it takes money to make money. I have accepted that my life goal of becoming a working director is going to take a very long time because I don’t have the time or the money to shoot regularly and build my reel. I suspect I will direct my first feature in my 40s, and I’ve accepted that I’m probably going to have to write something fabulous and fight to finance it. I’m dedicating 2008 to the “write your way in” theory, so we’ll see where that leads.

2. What is your most significant memory about money?
My mother would take me shopping, charge things on her credit cards, and then try to hide the bills from my father. That was how we bought things. And then my parents would fight over credit card bills and spending. When I turned 18, I couldn’t wait to get my own credit cards, but of course, no one was going to be paying those off other than me.

3. What is your worst habit around finances?
Overspending. I struggle to add figures in my head; so often when I enter things into my checkbook, I find that I’ve spent more than I thought. I usually deal with this by simply avoiding going shopping. OMG - I just now realized that this is why I buy myself things in December -precisely because I am unavoidably out (or online) shopping.

4. What role does money played in your relationships, romantic or otherwise?
I landed in L.A. with a significant amount of debt at really high interest rates, so for a while I considered myself somewhat un-dateable – I didn’t want to date someone as buried as me, but I could hardly demand fiscal responsibility when I myself was a financial disaster. That has actually been one of my strongest financial motivations: to become someone I would want to be with.

Hunky Actor Boyfriend has a similar story – and, like me, is finally truly digging out, although he’s definitely ahead of me financially. We’ve not talked actual numbers, but I believe that we have faith in each other, that we are both working hard to turn our financial lives around.

It’s important to me to continue to take care of my own mess as well. It would make me uncomfortable to have someone else just sweep it all away, unless we were married and it was the best financial decision for us as a couple – and I’d already made *significant* progress on my own, so that it was just a question of timing more than anything else.

5. What are three ways you have learned to save money since living in Los Angeles?
Well, I’ve just started a new 401K, which is honestly the only way I’ve ever successfully saved money, besides locking it into a CD. I had a 401K in my twenties, and I used that money to go to graduate film school. The new one may be the only way I’ll ever have the money for a house, but I guess at 36, it’s actually for my (far-distant!) retirement.

Since I’ve moved to L.A., I’ve also gotten loans from Prosper.com and Zopa.com (my Zopa user name is lizriz), so I’ve saved money by getting lower interest rates through person to person lending and social financing. These are new opportunities that are greatly responsible for my financial progress. On Zopa, people actually help you with your payments by opening CD accounts and allocating some of their interest to your monthly loan payment, which is just amazing to me. My Zopa loan is so new I haven’t even blogged about it yet!

Third, I have a “Keep the Change” savings account from Bank of America. Whenever I use my debit card, they round up the charge to my checking, and put the “change” into my savings. So finally I have money in a traditional savings account, which is meant to hold my two months living expenses, but so far I’ve found myself transferring the money back into my checking account every couple months because something’s come up. So I still don’t have that savings.

6. What did being an only child teach you about money?
My upbringing made me incredibly self-sufficient, but I’m not sure if that had to do with being an only child per se. I have had to learn to let people help me, and that I don’t always have to do everything on my own. I’m still working on that.

7. Do you think men are scared off by women who are financially self-sufficient?
Well, I hear that some are – I mean, you read about it, right? I don’t know if I’ve actually met any men like that. Personally, I believe that everyone benefits spiritually from performing work that they are paid for, and from being financially self-sufficient. I have a difficult time understanding why it would be threatening for your partner to be able to take care of themselves unless you need them to depend on you or want to control them for some reason, which doesn’t seem like a good relationship foundation at all. Personally, I’m looking for an equal partner in life, someone who brings as much to the table as I do. Someone who challenges me to be my best by being their best.

8. Has debt had any impact on your life?
Debt has had a huge impact on my life, and is probably adding, easily, ten years to my journey to become a working director. That said, debt is also the only way I got this far. I’ve worked since I was 16, but I could never make enough to have the opportunities that I saw as so important. Undergrad seemed like a window of time I would never get back, so I used debt to be in a sorority and to do and experience things I thought were important to my life and my career. I’ve used debt to reach for the life I want, for opportunities that seem to put other people ahead of me, and I certainly used debt to go to graduate school and to get across the country to L.A. I couldn’t have waited to do those things, but now it’s taking about ten years to recover into a solid financial position so that I can move forward again towards my goals. Meantime, I’m doing what I can for now, and it’s definitely beneficial that I’m working in the industry in Los Angeles, making connections and learning everything I can about films, television, and the art and business of making them.

9. Do you have an opinion about the writer’s strike?
Well, that could certainly be its own post, but generally speaking, I back and am totally inspired by the WGA and the striking writers. I believe that the studios represented by the AMPTP are trying to use the inevitable move to Internet downloading and viewing to get out of paying residuals on film and television, and I believe residuals are of paramount importance to maintain a creative community.

Since this is a post about money, I will also add that I find it deeply offensive when anyone suggests that the writers are in the wrong because many of them already make a lot of money. As though, if you make above certain wage, then it doesn’t matter if you’re getting screwed. Writers are skilled, creative workers; if they don’t make a heck of a lot more than me (currently working as an executive assistant), there’s something wrong with America! All this said, there are some serious items under negotiation, not all of which I might expect the AMPTP to concede to – but I do expect them to negotiate in good faith, which I do not see happening. Stay strong, writers!

10. Have you ever had a major disagreement with anyone about money?
Growing up, my father and I definitely disagreed about money and what he should pay for. This resolved when I stopped asking for or expecting anything. Years later, he did give me a loan when I ran out of money during my last semester of film school. Interest-free.

More about Liz Rizzo
Liz Rizzo lives in Los Angeles, dates a hunky actor, and aims to direct television. Dreamer since 1971, blogger since 2005, Democrat since 2007. Pieces of her soul will forever reside by the downtown fountain in West Palm Beach, in the lobby of the FSU Film School, and hovering above the stars on Hollywood Blvd. Her heart she brings with her, bruises and all. She blogs at Everyday Goddess.

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Read other interviews in Nina’s Ten Money Questions series at Queercents.

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Ten Money Questions for Liz Rizzo