My breaks started creaking and now I’m sitting here in a garage hoping they don’t discover an insane amount of work to do.
I’m sure to some extent I can write off this maintenance work as an expense. I use my car to make money for both my gigs. Regardless of the cost, I need to pay it in order to get back to making money.
It’s inconvenient and a stern reminder that the revenue we make is not the profit we take home. Somewhere in the middle is the cost of doing business. Sometimes it’s small, like 3$ in parking to make 100$ in sales money.
Sometimes it’s a big ol’ capital expense like the PA speaker I bought to perform on my own, anywhere.
When a lot of us get into business we get blinded by revenues and it skews our perception of success.
Until I do my taxes this year I don’t know what I really made
I have an excel sheet with half my annual expenses tracked.
Sometime in the spring I will go through every payment I made and every invoice and get to calculating my year. I’ll see how many thousands I spent on gas. I’ll get the total of what my music cost me.
I’ll also get to tabulate all the money that came in. As a hustler I got multiple sources of money. Some pay me proper, others are a couple of hundred a year (Thanks Lyndell if you read this). Even this very Substack is now trickling in money.
If instead you’re reading this on my site, that is a 500$ a year expense.
All of this is going to impact my taxes. I know my approximate tax rate for estimation purposes but this is my first full year as a no safety net contractor. I expect I’ll owe something big but I don’t know how bad it will be.
Since I don’t really know what I make, it makes spending excessively a risk.
I don’t know what my next year’s expenses will be
The one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been hustling is unexpected Ls come with the territory.
Now this is Holdie-error but I triggered two different radar cams for speeding in the last month. One ticket was 332$ because of construction and I expect the other one to be about 200$. I copped a dash cam for 400$ tax in only to get hit with this break situation right after (another 480$)
Now money can always be made and over time most financial hits are negligible. That being said it’s important to anticipate things won’t always go according to plan. Your life will probably be more expensive than your budget says.
Now you should do your research and try and guess the best you can. Just don’t expect that operating at break even is survivable. You need to create a cushion for the unexpected.
Basically you should save as much as you can to create a safety net.
Risks are okay as long as you can live with the consequences
If you only have 500$ to your name, throwing 400$ at XRP praying it will spike over the next week is silly.
You may end up with a quick flip. You may also end up losing money. Typically you don’t want to extend past a place that hurts your ability to live. Rent and food paid with a slower pace beats trying to make big decisions when hungry. Then again maybe your priorities don’t match mine.
I’m trying to increase my tolerance to good risk. Over the years I was scared to spend real money. I’ve turned down a lot of things over not believing in myself. Mostly I hadn’t handled my personal finances correctly and lacked any risk threshold. Being in debt sucks hence my financial freedom grind.
Now that I’m older and picturing my future with some capital I realize I’m still going to spend a lot of money. Some of it will lead to gains and some will pay for painful life lessons. Either way to win in life you need to take risks.
My goal is to get you to not spend frivolously so you can take those risks.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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