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Finance
Budgeting Sheet
Like anyone working in any industry, it's important to have a good understanding of your own incomings and outgoings. So much so that it is worth creating a budget sheet. Below I have tracked all of my current estimated incomings and outgoings to give myself a better idea of where my money is currently going.
Current Budget
As you can see it is currently quite heavily in the red taking an estimated 38 days per month to get the correct income needed. However it is actually accurate due to my current earnings being a bit all over the place. That being said financially at this moment in time I am reasonably sound. However, what about the future? If I decide to freelance or even work in the industry in general it would be a good idea to have a good grasp on my income. Please find below an estimated budgeting sheet for myself as a Junior Animator in the VFX Industry.
Future Budget
As you can see I successfully created a future budgeting sheet, even adding savings! But seeing as I currently don't work in the industry, pay any rent, council tax, gas/electricity or water bills, how did I find out how to budget myself? I looked into the following;
Average Junior Animator Salary
Average Gas/Electricity Bill
Average Water Bill
The rent cost I worked out by looking into places me and my partner have looked at getting and splitting the rent in half. And the council tax I took from the respective areas I was looking at staying with my partner and creating an average from those.
Saving Goals
I thought it would be worth setting actual saving goals for myself to go with the money I am allocating for each of the savings brackets; Long, mid and short term goals, making 3 goals for each. They are as follows;
Short (0-3 Months) -
- A video game £70
- Shoes £120
- Imax Tickets £50
Mid (3-6 Months) -
- Weeks Holiday £500+
- Car Deposit £500+
- New Phone or Tech £300+
Long (2+ years) -
- Long Trip to Japan £5,000
- Pet (Cat or Dog) £1,000+
- Mortgage £40,000/£60,000
Company Average Salaries
I thought it would be worth looking into the salaries of the companies who I am interested in working for as a Junior Animator. Those companies being; Framestore, Cinesite and Dneg. Please find below the results of my findings.
Framestore Salary
Cinesite Salary
Dneg Salary
Cinesite when translated in GBP is the highest paying Junior animator role at £31,454 - £34,342. Followed by Framestore which pays £28,489 - £34,301. Finally followed by Dneg who pay £28,130 - £30,365. Looking at these statistics, pay wise at least Cinesite is without a doubt the most appealing company to work for out of the 3. But money isn't always everything. All 3 salaries I feel are very reasonable. Although some are better than others I feel all of which give a very reasonable and fair amount. So much so that wherever I start my salary will mean that I start paying off my student loan as soon as I start working, which is something I am looking to pay off ASAP as it can affect your chances of getting a mortgage which is an entirely different subject in itself!
Creating an Invoice
Although I don't have any intention of becoming a freelancer for a long while yet I thought it would be worth getting in some practice in creating invoices. Please find below an example of the invoice I created.
Invoice
As you can see I created my invoice in the same format as my business card and CV (please find both of my self promotions page). It includes off relevant information the client would need such as; the day rate, the T's and C's, who they're paying, any contact information the client may need, the clients address, any other relevant information needed i.e tax codes, banking details and vat registration. I feel this is a format which I would definitely utilise if I were to freelance in future, however for the foreseeable future I will be working for companies directly instead of freelance as to me it's just more appealing. And you don't have to do your own taxes!
Working Out a Day Rate
Again although I don't foresee myself becoming a freelancer anytime soon I still had to come up with a day rate. That proved to be somewhat difficult as there weren't any Junior Animation freelancers which I could find to get salaries from. So how did I create a day rate? I ultimately decided to look into mid level freelancers average salaries shown below.
Freelancer Salary
I took into consideration the amount of experience needed to become a mid level animator and reflected that back onto myself, leaving me with the average pay of £200 per day. I feel this is reflective of my current skill for my position as a student. This is based on doing 10 hour days so I see that as being quite reasonable. But of course I would be willing to decrease the pay if the right opportunity were to arise.
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