The Creation Budget

This will have come a long way, but it all began when I started spending my beer money on cycling gear. Of course, I still have some beer money (what would life be without beer?) but a fair chunk of it shrunk into lycra.

Something similar happened with my digital spending. Slowly, without a grand plan, I started shifting what I used to spend on entertainment towards tools that help me create.

This has nothing to do with work or productivity. It’s about how I spend my free time, and what I get back from it.

I’m not against entertainment. I like watching a good film or binging a TV show like anyone else. But I noticed that entertainment rarely compounds. There’s always more to watch, another recommendation, another autoplay. You finish one thing and reach for the next. It can leave you drained in a way that’s hard to pin down. Not tired exactly. Maybe emptier than when you started?

Creating works differently. There’s always more to make, too, but it builds on itself. One idea connects to another. A note becomes a draft. A draft becomes something you’re proud of. And the act of making things creates friction.

The good kind of friction. The kind that sparks something inside you. It looks like it should cost you energy, but it gives it back. Like going for a bike ride. You burn something, yes. But you come home with more than you left with.

I cancelled Disney+ and Amazon Prime. I stopped my YouTube Premium subscription. I cut down my time spent on YouTube and didn’t switch to Spotify or Apple Music.

I went back to listening to radio. Stations like NTS, where someone else curates playlists and mixtapes, and you discover things by accident. When I really like a song or an artist, I buy the MP3 or the CD (yup, the 2000s are back indeed).

The money I freed up went towards tools that help me make things. Obsidian Sync, so my notes and writing travel with me across all my devices. I can capture an idea on my phone and pick it up on my laptop later. Yes, I could use any other note-taking app, but Obsidian is where ideas come easy.

Kagi for (re)search, because Kagi actually helps me find what I’m looking for. Not the most glamorous subscriptions. But right now, I’d rather pay for something that helps me make things than something that helps me pass time.

Obsidian in particular changed my creative output. While writing, my brain started making connections: to things I’d written before, to notes I’d made while reading someone else’s work. Those moments, where one thought links to another and evolves into a new idea, are extremely satisfying. They give you a genuine boost. You want to keep going, dive deeper, follow the thread. And sometimes that thread becomes a blog post, or a clearer way of thinking about a problem I’d been mulling over for weeks.

That’s what I mean by creation releasing energy. It compounds. One idea feeds the next. In my experience, consumption rarely does that.

I also caught myself in a pattern I suspect others will recognise. Instead of trying something, I’d watch five, ten, fifteen videos about how to do it. Each one added a new angle, a new consideration, a new reason to hesitate. Something that started simple became complicated. Not because it was, but because I’d consumed too much advice and not enough experience.

The solution was obvious: watch one video, then try it. Learn from the mistakes. Creation gives you a different understanding than theory ever can. Not always better, but almost always more personal. You discover things no tutorial will tell you, because they’re specific to you, your context, your hands.

This isn’t only about digital tools. The same principle applies to anything where you swap passive spending for active making. A set of watercolours and paint brushes instead of another streaming service. A repair kit instead of next-day delivery for a replacement. A photography course instead of endlessly scrolling through other people’s photos.

The point isn’t what you choose. It’s the shift: from paying to be entertained towards investing in something you can do with your own hands, your own head, your own time. Something that empowers rather than consumes you!

The most satisfying aspect isn’t the money saved or the subscriptions cancelled. It was being able to look back and see something. A blog I built over time. A knowledge base full of my own thinking. Things I made. Not content I consumed and half-forgot by the next morning.

So now that you’ve consumed my blog post, go create something.