489. The Podcast Money Leak You’re Missing

0:05 Good morning, podcasting, morning chat. Today is my wife's birthday, April 6th, 2026. And today creators are losing serious money behind the scenes. And Ralph Estep breaks down why it's happening and the surprising simple fix that can turn it around fast. Plus, how you can win his duo. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, please share this with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. The Podcasting Morning Chat is powered by Ironic Media, helping podcasters launch, Polish and grow great shows, and by Content Creators Accountant, helping creators build real business behind their content.

1:20 Good morning again podcasting morning chat. Thank you so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me we have Dr. Fay, Ralph Estep, Sid Meadows, Alex Baelish and also Nikki AKA Tide from our audience is on stage with us again today. Welcome everyone in a shout out to Dave, Tim and John in the clubhouse audience this morning. Thanks for being here and I hope everyone who celebrates had a great Easter weekend. We were just chatting before the show that Sid got to see Project Hail Mary, which I saw a couple weeks ago now and I loved it. Sid, you said you liked it, but you had gripes about the book or as far as how it compared? So I did enjoy the movie quite a bit, but some of the differences between the movie and the book were very interesting because I had to explain to my wife who never who has not read the book, some of the things that were happening in the movie because the movie did not explain some of the things that really should have been explained.

2:24 So that's really kind of my gripe about the. Gotcha. See. Yeah, it's funny because somebody who didn't read the book, I didn't feel lost, right? Like I got it. But yeah, I could see. I think that's always a challenge when you read a book first is then you have the whole image, the the whole movie in your head. And then if it doesn't compare, it can kind of fall short for you, At least for some people anyway. Yeah. So here's a question. Here's a question for you. Yeah. And then we can move on. Sorry. No, let's. Do it. Did you know how long he was in a coma and why he was in a coma? No. That's an important aspect from the book, right? And did you know, do you know what project Mel Harry was? A project Hail Mary was about.

3:09 Well I knew it was about and this is no spoiler is because this is shared in the trailers, but it's about saving the the sun and saving the earth ultimately. Correct. But they didn't really tell you about that in the movie. So if you hadn't seen the trailer, they didn't really tell you why Project Hail Mary existed. So those were a couple of Mike instances of like, why didn't you tell? Why didn't you tell the audience, like what this was really about? So I thought it was a really great movie. I'd probably go see it again but in the movie just left out some details that I think were needed to complete the story. Yeah, OK, that's fair. And again, I didn't read it, so I don't know better, but yeah, I've heard some people say the same thing.

3:49 But yeah, good movie, highly recommended. I think Sid would recommend it as well, despite it missing a few things that the book had. But yeah, go check that out. All right, with that couple quick things for you, I just want to remind you that we still are accepting applications to have your podcast evaluated. So this is for our evaluation series. And what we do is basically the idea of this is we're giving podcasters a chance to get real, thoughtful feedback in a supportive environment. We listen for what's working with your episode, what could be stronger, and what might help your show connect better with listeners. So if you've been wanting honest input, a fresh perspective, ideas that you can use, you can submit your podcast episode. Pick one of your choice and we'll put it in the spotlight for you.

4:43 We are gentle, we are honest, but we are not mean. I promise you about that. And you can go check out all of the different evaluation episodes at Podcasting Morning chat.com. And more importantly, you can apply by going to podcastingmorningchat.com/evaluate. I might have someone. Oops, no. It's OK. Go ahead, do. You remember this is like backstage stuff, but do you remember the person I told you about? And we couldn't even access his his podcast. This was several weeks ago. He has regrouped everything we can access it and I think I'll send him the link to submit. That's awesome. Great.

5:24 Yes, I would love to do that. I'm glad to hear it's working now. Podcasting morning chat.com/eval EVAL. Also just wanted to tease for you guys today, today, later on this show, find out how you can win Ralph's road caster duo. So Ralph, I believe you're giving away this road caster duo because you upgraded. Well, it's not necessarily an upgrade, but I guess it is in the sense that it has more bells and whistles. But you got the road caster Pro 2, so now no need for the duo, right? That's why you're giving it away. Absolutely. I'm living in the land of more leveling gears and more cool buttons and a little bit bigger footprint.

6:06 But that's why I'm going to give away Ralph's duo. Awesome. Yes. And how old is it? How long have you had this? Oh, probably about nine months. OK. So it's not very old. No, OK, good. And it comes with obviously the duo. Does it come with anything else? Like I know there's a there's something else you're adding to the package and we'll talk about that too. But like, does it come with all the wires or is this something that people would need their own wires for? How does that work? Well, no, I mean it's going to come with the the pay cable to plug it in and it's pretty much good to go after that. You will have to get an SD card because I took my SD card out because that's my own content in it. But really it's plug and play pretty well to go.

6:47 And the best part is I've already got all the the nuanced things done to it and the upgrades to the firmware and all that kind of stuff. So you're ready to go right from the jump. Awesome. OK, cool. So later in the show we will share with you exactly how to win it. So with that, Ralph coming to you, and I want to start with this, what are you hoping that people take away from this discussion by the end of it all? I want creators to stop losing money and have a 10 minute plan to understand the business side of their podcasts. That's really my goal here because today I want to talk about something I see constantly with creators. And here's the thing, a lot of people always say, oh Ralph, I'm just bad with money.

7:30 I don't think that's the issue at all. And I don't think it's because people are irresponsible. I think the problem is their financial systems are a mess. And the crazy part is this, the fix only takes about 10 minutes a week. It's really that simple. So today I want to open this up to have a real conversation about creator money systems. And so I want to start by asking the room a question and feel free to jump in. How many creators here feel like their money tracking system is? I'm going to give you 3 choices. OK, and here's what we'll do in the chat. We'll put a one for OK a instead of a, say 1-2 and three in the chat. Put those that number whatever corresponds to you. So #1 how many creators feel like their money tracking system is #1 clean and organized? If you feel like your money system is clean and organized, put a number one.

8:19 If you think your money system is kind of messy, put a #2 you know, not quite not organized, but not quite disorganized either. Or if you think it's a complete disaster, put a #3. Now listen, there's no judgement here. And the reason I say there's no judgement is creators aren't taught how to do this. So let's see what everybody says here. Looks like we've got a mix here, Ralph. We've got. Yeah, Tim. Tim has an 8, which I don't know what to make of that. But yeah, it looks like we've got a mix. We got several twos in here. And I put myself as a 2, even though now that I've hired you, things are getting a lot more organized. But and I wasn't terribly disorganized, but I knew I had room for improvement.

9:06 So that's why I personally chose #2 for this, this one. But yeah, it looks like maybe Sid is the only one in here that's got a number one there. Well, I certainly applaud Sid. So Sid, let me ask you, what system are you using and what do you like about it? So good morning, everybody. So we use QuickBooks for everything to run all of my businesses, including the podcast. And it's super easy. I have an accountant that I worked with for 15 years. I also have an accounting VA that handles everything for me and reconciles bank statements and categorizes expenses and all that. Then she's worked with me for almost 7 years. So I feel like we have a really good system in place and it works well. And I pay bills the first week of the month and we get paid a lot on the first week of the month. So the first week of the month is always typically pretty busy. But I feel like QuickBooks is.

9:56 It's not my favorite tool, but we've used it long enough that it's super. We understand how to use it, though it still confuses me at times. I can attest to that too. It confuses me at times. Also. Go ahead, Ralph. And I think that's a good system, Sid, and I like what you're saying about that. You've enlisted people around you to help you with the system. And I think that's part of it. But there's anyway, I'm just going to read a couple of the comments because I thought they were kind of funny. Somebody said what number is non existent? John Jemingo Greek. That's a good one, John. But and that's the problem, you know, there, we don't get that training. I want to talk a little bit. Does anybody else want to comment before I move on? I got some ideas about what causes this this root problem. No, I think go for it, Ralph. Cool O here's what I think the root roblem is. The reality is this, creators were never taught this stuff. Most creators don't have 30 years of experience in accounting like I have.

10:45 That's just the truth, right? And nobody explains it. Nobody explains how this is going to impact you down the road and you're not really building it from the front end. I mean, sure, we learn about microphones, we learn about editing. See, these are all the things that I had no idea about. I knew the accounting side. I knew the financial side. But most creators learn about microphones and editing. And now in the YouTube thing, thumbnails and audience growth. But for so many of us, nobody explains how to run the business side. And when you don't get that explanation, there's no doubt that people put ones and and twos and and threes. It's all over the board. But it leads to some predictable outcomes and some predictable problems.

11:25 And I want to share 2 examples. I'll give you one example. I just dealt with the person. It's been about two weeks ago Creator came in and they had put together simple. I said, listen, they need to do your tax returns. They had this 1099 K from the PayPal platform that showed they made like $30,000 last year, which isn't bad. That's great. And I said, OK, well if we do your tax return now, I'm going to show $30,000 of income. And he said, Ralph, hold on a second. Now I, I don't have 30,000 to show for that. I said I didn't. That doesn't shock me. I said OK, well where did the money go? Well, Ralph, to be honest with you, I can't really tell you that, but, but, but I've got about $20,000 left, so $10,000 went somewhere. But the problem is they don't have any system to track that. So now we're trying to figure out what happened last January and March and and April leading up to this year. And that's a problem.

12:14 Now, sometimes the problem isn't that sometimes I've got people who love spreadsheets. It's funny, I'm an accountant. I don't like spreadsheets. But for so many people, they got these drowning in spreadsheets with 15 tabs. Sometimes clients will send me a spreadsheet, it's got 100 tabs when I don't know where to start. And the problem with that, it creates this anxiety and anxiety is not good. Now, I don't believe that anybody did this because they don't care. I think there's a genuine concern about I need to do something here, but the problem is their system didn't exist. And that's really the next question I want to ask through. If I had to ask you right now, what part of Creator Finances feels the most overwhelming because the chances are the reason that people aren't doing this is it it feels overwhelming. I'm going to throw a couple ideas out there, but I really want to hear from the room.

13:01 Is it tracking income? Is it tracking expenses? Is it the dreaded tax side? You know, Sid's got the bookkeeping software under control. Or is is it that, or maybe it's just staying consistent. So I just want to pause here for a second. Let the room make some comments about what is the overwhelming part to you in this whole system. Wow. I think for me it's just staying on top of it, staying in touch with my finances, being able to really understand the insurance and outs of it. I think that's where I get overwhelmed and I tend to just shy away all together from the books.

13:41 Yeah, I think that makes sense. And that's the thing, it can be really overwhelming. And I totally get that that is a hard part to the whole thing. Why the overwhelm? Does anybody want to comment about why if you put that you are struggling with this or you feel like this is overwhelming, does anybody want to mention why they feel overwhelmed by this? Because that's what I really want to understand because I've got a solution. But before I jump to the solution, I really want to talk about how what is the feeling? BC go ahead. I saw you had a comment. I think personally it's almost like it it would over complicate for me the process of opening up a business account and knowing that I myself would have to manage and prep for those taxes as opposed to kind of keeping everything coming through my typical checking account. I kind of feel like the taxes are taken care of, so all I have to do is file normally for next year. But if I go and open a business account, then it takes the tax onus and brings it to me, which I typically don't have to manage.

14:43 And so that seems like an extra step. But now that I think about it, I'm not sure that makes a lot, a lot of sense. But that's where I was coming from. BCI think you make a good point, but I think BC if I can, if I can go a little bit deeper into what you were saying is you don't have good separation BC is that correct? Yeah, that's, that's a good route for it, yeah. And I think that's one of the big problems is if you don't have good separation, it makes what what I'm talking about really hard. And here's the thing I want to say the best accounting system is the one you're actually going to use. I can propose all kinds of cool setups and QuickBooks Online and Wave and all these other things, but it's got to be the one you're going to use. And the other thing is, John, put something in the chat. Let me read it says my pockets is a hobby. So I operate at a loss.

15:30 Sometimes I think I don't know what to know how much I spent on podcasting. Yeah, John, I think that's a good point too. And and I probably should have prefaced today's discussion with this. I am more talking to the people. But but even if it's a hobby, John, if you're spending money on a hobby, you still want to attract those things because you may very well get. And John, I listen to your show and I know you asked for support. So you may very well get a 1099 or you may be getting money coming in the door. So you're going to have to report that. And if you have to report that, and you definitely want to be able to report the expenses that are offset against that, even if it's a hobby. So you've got to have some kind of system. One of the things that I think the best thing to do is have a system that at least separates the business and the personal stuff because that's the biggest problem is if you don't separate it, then tax time comes around and you're trying to figure out what are you going to do.

16:23 And the stuff is so intermingled with personal and business altogether, it makes an absolute mess. But you don't have to use the one that's the most powerful. It doesn't have to be the most expensive and it certainly doesn't have to be the one that's most complicated. It's just got to be the one that you're going to look at and not look at once a hear you got to look at it every single week. And I'm going to talk in a little bit about a 10 minute plan that I think really solves this. But you know, at this point, I think does anybody else want to comment on the overwhelm piece before I move on to the next thought that I have? But are there other people that want to share a little bit of their overwhelm stories? I know a lot of people have made some comments here in the chat. Anyone have any stories or any overwhelm you want to share regarding finances? Go ahead, Dr. OK, I think my biggest problem, my biggest overwhelm, is that I don't know how much to pay myself when I get money from my clients.

17:20 I know that I should take money out and put it in my regular checking account to pay myself, but I'm I'm at a loss as to how much to pay myself. Oh, Dr. thank you so much. You just walked into where I'm going to go next. And that's the whole idea. No, But Dr. just nails it because that is one of the biggest struggles that a lot of content creators have is how much do I pay myself? So DRI promise you I'm going to answer that question here in just a couple of minutes. But Dr. thank you for sharing that because that is a very common thing that a lot of people say to me is right graph. I got this money coming in, but I don't know how to pay myself. I don't know how much to set aside for taxes. So I think that that is a brilliant observation, Dr. And it's something that I am definitely going to get into and I just want to read something to Dave Campbell put in said, I don't make money directly from my podcast, but Buy me a Coffee sponsors have been great.

18:17 I don't claim expenses and here in Canada, we only need to report supplemental income when we go over $30,000 a year. I like that. That is a very cool thing, Dave. Not that way in the US. So in the US, basically if you have more than $400.00 of money coming in the door, you've got to report that. A lot of people are shocked when I say $400.00, like $400.00. The other thing, I want to be careful and I, I was on the Ask the Podcast coach a couple months ago, be very careful when you're doing sponsorships that you don't use the word donate. It's one of my pet peeves. You cannot accept donations if you are not a 5O1C3 or some sort of charity. Very important.

19:01 I hear that on podcasts all the time. Oh, I want you to donate to my show. You cannot do that. You can use the word support. You can use the word encourage, but be really careful about using the word donate. So here's what I was going to get into next. I really think with most creators, there's, there's three stages to this whole financial development of things. I think stage 1, these are your beginning creators. If you're just starting out, you need something simple. You need something free and something with low friction. One of the tools that I recommend is a tool like Wave WAVE. It works well. The thing I really like about it is it connects to your bank. So all the transactions that are happening at the bank, that are happening at your credit card, you can connect all those things.

19:45 So all those transactions are feeding in the byproduct of that. It categorizes those expenses. Now you're going to have to go in there and do a little work to say, OK, this is for this, this is for this, but it generates basic reports, which is what you need. DRI see, Dr. uses that. That's fantastic and that's what it does. So if you're just starting out, you don't hear me saying go buy something expensive. Now listen, I use QuickBooks Online for all of my clients. I think that's an excellent tool, but I don't think it's necessary for the beginning creator. And that's why I think a tool like Weibo. And listen again, like I said earlier, if you want to be into spreadsheets, that's fine. Use what's going to work for you. Now, stage 2 is what I see your growing creators. This is where things are getting a little bit more complex. Most of my growing creators have multiple income streams. They might have brand deals, they're getting some affiliate income, maybe they're even selling some coaching or digital products.

20:38 Now this is where I'm going to talk about QuickBooks Online because this is where I think QuickBooks Online really shines and it's, I think Sid, you said this is what you're using. The thing I like about that is it's got more automation, it's got better reporting, and honestly, it can scale with the business. And in this stage 2, I think that's where you're getting to is the ability to start scaling with the business. And then stage 3, these are what I call your service creators. These are creators who are invoicing, consulting and coaching. Maybe they're doing editing services, maybe doing some design. ServiceNow, what are the tools here? Now, I, I firmly believe that QuickBooks Online still serves this area very well, but there's another one I'm going to throw out there and that's FreshBooks.

21:19 And listen, I don't have an affiliate link to any of these folks. I'm not being paid by any of those. But FreshBooks is another one that works well if you're using invoicing tools. So this one, let me ask the room. I know Sid, you've already said what you're using, but I would love to hear what other people are using or if you're still in spreadsheet and let's talk about that too. Does anybody want to comment? Yeah, I will. For some reason the things aren't working. I've been using Zoho books for my business which and the other reason I'm I'm was using Zoho books is because I was paying for it and I didn't want to have to pay for QuickBooks and Zoho because I was using Zoho for CRM.

21:59 But I may be dropping Zoho altogether to just go back to QuickBooks because I have a meeting with some guy on tomorrow. I think QuickBooks is great. It just got really expensive, which is a completely different conversation. But Zoho, it does everything. It's just, it's like any software, you have to learn the language and I think that's the biggest problem. And Alex, you make a good point about QuickBooks and I totally agree with what you're saying and you do have a good meeting coming up, by the way. I'm looking forward to that. But no, I think QuickBooks is getting more expensive. It's very true. And I think they're able to do that because they've, honestly, I think the biggest issue is they built so much AI into this now.

22:39 Well, they can. Yeah, they can because they've got the market. I mean, I think the last time I read it was 80% of the market is on some form of QuickBooks. And what really makes me mad is, and I think this is the biggest problem and and not to give you a softball here, I think the problem with content creators and small, I say entrepreneurial businesses, it's like they get, for lack of a better word, screwed because the products are for the big dogs and for the medium sized dogs. And you know, my biggest frustration when you went back to the original question as a business owner or a content creator, and I think this is what ends up happening is you start a business as a quote, UN quote hobby or a quote, UN quote, I'm going to make money business. And it's really frustrating when you don't know what you don't know.

23:36 And I know you can read a book and you can do all this other stuff, but I equate being a business owner, especially a small business owner, as that guy trying to put the plates on the sticks. And you're just trying to, as I like to say, pay the mafia every week, which or month, which is my daughter or the bills or whatever else. So you have all these different things spinning and you're just trying to get to your next sale or in this case your next episode or whatever else. So I, I think, you know, going back to QuickBooks, which was the original question is I've never heard of FreshBooks, but I know there's not a better way or there might be a better way, but unfortunately QuickBooks has kind of made it the only way to keep it clean in a lot of ways.

24:25 And Alex, I appreciate what you're saying. I think you're right. I will only add to it that one of the biggest struggles I see even with QuickBooks is getting it set up correctly. When I take on a new content creator client, one of the biggest struggles I've seen is they didn't spend the time to understand how to create the infrastructure to front end and then QuickBooks becomes a frustration point. Yes, you're paying for it and it's not getting, you're not getting out of it what you need. So that's where working with somebody at the front end to help you get that set up is really a huge thing. I want to share what I call a 10 minute weekly money review here in a minute, but I want to open up. Does anybody else want to comment about what they're using? I see John said. John Jamingo said he uses Google Sheets and not very well.

25:08 That's the problem with Google Sheets. That's the problem with spreadsheets is I just, my biggest struggle with that is it doesn't what I like about Wave, what I like about QuickBooks, it actually feeds the transactions in from your bank account, from your credit card. So when it feeds those transactions in, it kind of pushes you to keep this stuff up to date. Whereas I'm not aware of how a Google spreadsheet could do that. But does anybody else want to comment about what they're using and the overwhelm of the struggles they're having, or maybe the triumphs that you're having right now as well? Actually, Ralph, you know what? I have an even an even better idea here right now. I hope this is the right sound. Let's see. OK, how about this one? It's time to to share how you can win Ralph's roadcaster duo. So this is what she got to do Again, we talked about this at the top of the show.

26:03 This is a lightly used roadcaster duo. It's basically plug and play. All you really need is an SD card so you can record directly to your Rd. Caster Duo. So if you are interested, it's going to happen between now and Friday the 17th of April, 11:45 PM Eastern Time. All you have to do is go to podcastingmorningchat.com/duo DUO and and then enter over there. We're using kingsummo.com. This is how we're keeping track of all the entries and keeping all of this together. So what you can do, here's the cool part is when you go, you'll automatically get an entry when you sign up. But then there are multiple ways you can get additional entries. For example, sharing this on Instagram, sharing this on Facebook, wherever, any social media platform, even by e-mail. When you do it, you get another.

27:06 Actually, I think with that one it's three additional entries. And then we've added some additional ways you can get more entries as well. For example, following Ralphs YouTube channel, following podcasting, morning chat on Instagram, There are multiple ways you can do it by just going to podcastingmorningchat.com/duo. And every day you can go back to that website and earn yourself at least one new entry. Even if you went through all the different ways that we've added there for you so you can always get one more entry every single day, we can. Vote Yep often and vote many times.

27:46 That's right. That's right. And I think BC had a question. Go ahead BC here. You go. Yeah, I stepped away for a second. So I do apologize if someone else did ask the question. Ralph, have you found that the dual works best only with any kind of Rd. microphone or have you been able to use other kinds? Is there a specificity? How does that look? Oh, great question. Oh, I love that question because I have a bad case of gas and that's gear acquisition syndrome. Oh, it's so true. So I've used the I've used the pod mic, I've used the Rode pod mic. It worked excellently. I've used the Shore SM7DB. I've got a shotgun mic I used for it. And now if you caught me on the video today, it's not a good day to talk about video, but I am using the HEIL thin mic. So I used all of those things.

28:37 I also have it or had it plugged into my Mac, plugged into my iPhone. So it is a very versatile tool that does all the things you need to do in about an 8 by 8 footprint. So I really love the thing, but I just wanted to be able to go to more leveling sliders with the Pro 2. Now I have what, six of these now? I guess six of these, it's a little bit bigger. As I get a little bit older, the pads are a little bit bigger. So I'm appreciating bigger pads and bigger dials. And you know, it just looks cool on my studio desk too. But no, the other thing that we're throwing into that though is in addition to getting the do, and here's what I'm going to do because I want to make sure somebody said I am going to grab an SD card and throw that in with it, Mark. But in addition to that, I'm also going to give you a one hour complimentary coaching call with me to help you on whatever's going on with your money side of your podcast. I'm happy to do that and we'll do a monetization on it. I'll talk to you about ways to monetize your podcast. Or if you just want some ideas of how to structure your finances from the podcasting side, I'd be happy to help you do that.

29:43 So all of that is included at Podcasting Morning chat.com/duo Duo. OK, so that's it, podcastingmerchat.com/duo. You can go and enter to win now and enter often between now and Friday, April 17th, 11:45 PM Eastern. We will announce the winner that following Monday the 20th for our next Money Monday edition. All right, so with that, Ralph, let's dive back in to today's Money Monday. Oh, thank you so much and I will throw this out. One of the ways you can get more chances is if you share it on your social media platform. So when you go to that platform, yeah, go everyday, share with everybody, you know, because I really want this to go to somebody. I want it to be good, be a great giveaway. But let's jump into what we were just talking about. So we talked about at the beginning why most creators aren't taught these skills.

30:37 Why most creators, you know, they struggle with this. But now I really want to talk about some solutions because one of the things that I want to bring this morning is a solution and it's what I call the 10 minute weekly money review. 10 minutes. I promise you, in 10 minutes you can conquer this whole feeling of overwhelm, this whole feeling of not being ready to go with your finances. Here's what you do. I'm going to give you step by step. Step number one, pick a time of the week and make that a sacred time. Put that on your calendar. Like, hey, it's a sponsor meeting, it's a brand deal meeting, whatever works for you. But this is a sacred time. You carve it out, you put it on your calendar. That's the first thing. And when you do that, the first thing I want you to do is just categorize the income that came in for the prior week.

31:22 Whether you got money from YouTube, from brand deals, maybe you've got Patreon, maybe you've made some affiliate income, or maybe you're offering services, but just start there. That's the first step. Categorize the income. Second step, categorize your expenses. Now again, you're doing this 10 minutes a week, so this shouldn't feel like overwhelmed. Categorize your gear purchases, any software you've bought, those subscriptions that we all have, 100 subscriptions for different things. Any travel you're doing, any contractors you're paying. And here, don't forget about this one. Any education or coaching services that you're subscribing to or paying for, categorize those expenses. So #1 the income. And John, I see you're already overwhelmed. John, come on now, dude, you can do this. John, I promise you.

32:09 I've listened to your show. You can handle this. I promise you, John, you can do. This John, you know, I want to ask if John will be interested in coming up on stage and sharing a little bit of what's overwhelming him. And I'm not saying that he's wrong because if he feels that way, there's got to be others that are feeling that way, too. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about that, Ralph, and see if you can help with the overwhelm. So, yeah, good morning. Let's let's do it. All right, so can you guys hear me now? I don't even know if you can hear me. So I started this as I'm retired. OK? So I just started this as something to do because I'm retired and I don't want to sit and watch TV all day. And then it started to get expensive. So I started offering podcasting, editing and I don't make a lot of money and it I think it basically is a wash. But now RAF is scaring me because he's like, Oh well, the IRS says I'm like, Oh my God, the IRS can't they just say I'm moving to Canada?

33:07 Can I identify as a Canadian please? Because I don't have to identify any of this or so anyhow, so now, so I have some editing. Every once in a while someone throws me a 5 or 10, you know, on rumble. And I'm, I know I'm operating at a loss, but I'm thinking to myself. So now I'm, I'm worried about it. But so now I have to go and try to figure this all out. And I probably will do it because now I'm that I know about it. You don't know about it till you know about it. But I was just so happy being an ostrich and having my head stuck in the sand and not worried about it. Well, John, you're not the only ostrich, my friend. But all that said, yeah, John, and I'm not trying to scare you, but The thing is with these platforms where you're receiving money, these platforms are going to report this information to the IRS. So that's really the issue, John. And I totally understand where you're coming from, John, you know, and it it's difficult if you're doing this is, hey, this is I'm retired.

34:01 This is a sideline business. But what you don't want to do is get yourself jammed up because of something that never was intended to be a big money maker or anything like that. So John, that's why I say this. If you can find 10 minutes a week, honestly, John, you can do this. Just categorize your income. You talked about the different streams. Somebody threw you 5 from Rumble or they threw you maybe through PayPal, whatever that looks like. Just categorize that. And then whatever you spent this week, listen, you don't have to go buy or go get a separate bank account just for a business. You could set up a sub account of your checking account. You can go get a credit card, or maybe you already have a credit card. I'm going to call this my business credit card. But just do that, categorize it, put all the income into that, put all the expenses from that.

34:46 And really the third step in this channel of 10 minutes is start to take receipts. Picture the receipts, take a picture of them. All of us carry around a very expensive phone in our pocket. Snap a photo of that, upload it, put it somewhere, and the last step in this weekly check in is check your cash position. So really ask yourself three basic questions. Listen John, I promise you, if you can ask yourself these three questions, you can do the 10 minute check in. What came in, what went out and what's left. That's really the whole system. As you're sitting here talking about it, it really isn't that big of a deal. I do have a credit card that I don't even really use. It's just sitting there for emergencies. I could turn that into the the podcasting card where I just put everything and then I would know where, whatever, what everything I use.

35:32 I don't even know what I pay for. I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what I pay for. I pay for some AI stuff. I pay for things for voice overs, you know, I pay for all kinds of stuff. I just throw it out there and then what comes in, what comes in and what's left over. I just, you know, pay for myself. So I don't know. And also I have GAS too. I have gear syndrome where I go out and buy all kinds of gear so I have that also. And John, I think what you just said makes a lot of sense. I don't think people realize how many little $5 and $10 and $15 subscriptions and all that are running out the door every month. And so that's the other clear take away from this is you start to get a vision of what's going on and where your money's actually being spent.

36:18 I have worked with some content creators that didn't realize just how much they were spending. I had one particular guy, he had like 15 different AI subscriptions because he bought this 10. This is the newest one, This is the flashy one. I really like this one. But then this one had a different bell and whistle. So that's the thing I think you're going to find is you're going to discover what happened with your money. And I think there's a lot of value in understanding what happened with your money. Does that make sense to you, John? Yeah, it does. It's just one of those things is I don't know how to explain it except I'm going to spend it this way. It's like you're afraid you have cancer, but you don't want to know you have cancer. So you don't go and you don't go. You like stick in your head and say you don't want to know how much money you're dumping into this or if you're making any money at it. I would imagine I, I know I can't be the only person that does this.

37:07 I can relate to this. John, I can relate to this. Yeah, I totally relate to exactly what you just said. So I don't think you're alone here. And also Sid wants to chime in as well. So let's let's check in with Sid. Go ahead. I just have a question for John. John, do you have a separate business that you're running your podcasting stuff through or are you just putting it all into your personal? It's just all into my personal Yeah, I don't have anything. Curious. There was no follow up, just curious, Sid. No, not really. I mean, but it does sound like to me that as John starting to do more and more things, he should probably set up a business to separate the 2. But that's I mean, that's what I would do. I don't know what advice Ralph would offer.

37:47 I would. Sit. I 100% agree with you. I think John is in a position to do just that for really two reasons. Reason #1 to prevent any liability exposure. You don't want to subject all your personal assets or personal things to this. And second thing, I think it would help you get more organized, John. And honestly, John, the other side of this, it might provide for some nice side income in retirement because you're going to put yourself out there with a little bit more professionalism from the business structure perspective. And I think sometimes we overthink that one, but I think there's a legitimate part to that and that is having a LLC and it's, listen, it doesn't have to take a lot of money to do it. You know, you're welcome to reach out to me. I'm happy to do I, I know a couple of people here in the community have reached out.

38:33 I do free 15 minute discovery calls where you can, we'll sit and talk about what you got going on. I can make some recommendations. So I think I'm going to trumpet what you said said, I think, John, you're in the position where it probably makes sense to start thinking about carving this out as something separate. All right, so I'm going to just, I'm going to fall on the knife. So I actually did set up an LLC. I haven't done anything with it. I have the name and I have everything set up, but I just don't do anything with it. I've had it for two years now. Well, and, and John, that's something you and I could certainly talk about. The problem with a lot of people setting up their own LLCS, and I see this almost once or twice a week, is if you don't set it up the right way from the front end, it doesn't help you and it doesn't help you at all if you don't use it.

39:17 And I'm not picking on you, John, you and I are friends. We, we're, we're good. But I'm just saying like, it's great to have it #1 is it set up correctly to benefit you both from a liability and a tax perspective? And secondarily, are you using it? If you're not using it, then you you're spending money every year for franchise taxes and licensing and all that, assuming you're doing that and it's not helping you at all. No, I'm a wreck now. I wish I'd never listened this morning, but no, I appreciate it. Now that's not a glowing endorsement, John. And listen, I'm a true confession here, true confession from an accountant. You know what they talk about people who are builders and carpenters, you never build your own stuff. Well, true confession is from the accounting perspective. I, you know, I'm one of those guys that procrastinates and lets this stuff go.

40:07 And I, I think that's where the 10 minute weekly check in really is where you can really start to see what's going on here because you got to start looking at this as ACEO of your own business. And yes, it can still be a hobby. It can still be a small thing, but you've got to be able to know where your money's going because you, like John said, you know, you might not realize how much money you're actually spending on a hobby. And next thing you know, you've got a credit card that's got a high balance, or you're noticing your savings account is trickling down because of all the things you're buying. And a lot of times you've got subscriptions and stuff that you're just not using anymore. So why give them your money? I agree 100%. Sorry, yes I do. Go ahead BC I saw you want to make a comment. You just want to add 1 thing and I know Ralph will agree with this 100%.

40:52 Even if you're not actively using your LLC, be sure you're filing your annual report anyway because even if you're not using it, it's not bringing in revenue yet you still have to file. I personally I will give this away. I just pulled my company out of disillusion because I didn't file for the past few years because I wasn't making money. I didn't realize that it was still a necessity. So just to let you know, that is a thing, especially at least in North Carolina. I'm not sure. I'm not sure where you are, John, but keep that in mind. Yeah, I guess my, I started mine in Delaware and again, I, I it just sits there. I don't even know what you know, like I said, they said, they said people say, oh, make an LLC, it's easy. Just make it so it's just what what I did. But again, here it is.

41:37 You just said normal person. Excuse me, a normal person and they say start at LLC. So you start it and you're not using it and you forget about it. Matter of fact, I didn't even think about it until you guys were talking about LLCS. And I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, I do have one, so. Yeah, and BC you're absolutely right. I'm in Delaware. I set up Delaware LLCS for people all over the country. And yes, there's an annual franchise tax that has to be paid in Delaware. It's every June 1st. Every state has those. If you don't pay your franchise tax and if you don't have what's called a registered agent. I don't want to get into the weeds, but registered agent is basically someone who is a process of person that they call on. If you have an LLC, if you don't pay those, what happens is the states basically put you into what's called dissolution, where they basically fine you out of existence and then you don't actually have an LLCBC.

42:27 I'll throw one more thing out there since you mentioned it. Understand that LLCS, S Corps and all that are at the state level. So they're only valid in the state in which you are operating. And it gets kind of complicated with content creation because where are you actually operating? But that's where you really need to go and meet with somebody who understands these things. If you've already got one set up, that's fine. We'll take a look at where it is and what we can do to help you do it. But yeah, just because, and this is the problem, John, a lot of people throw it out there on Reddit and Facebook and oh, go get an LLC. But they don't tell you why, they don't tell you how to do it, and they certainly don't give you any guidelines about how to keep up with those things. And it's super important that if you're going to have it, that you're going to use it to your benefit, especially if you're going to pay for it every year.

43:14 Ralph, we have two people that want to chime in here, Dr. And then Sid. So go for it Dr. Yeah, I have wanted been wanting to get on that quarterly payment kind of ritual, but I think I remember you saying one time that you are not a fan of that. Do I have that right? Well, I'll answer that with a yes and no. OK. If you have consistent content income coming in, you probably need to do it quarterly because the IRS wants to get paid as you go. So, but if it's not consistent, then DRI would make the argument that it's not necessary. But I don't want to overspeak and say you don't have to do it. What I'm going to say is the IRS is expecting that if you don't do it, they actually will charge you a penalty for not making what they call estimated taxes throughout the year. But Dr. the bigger issue and really the core of today issue is how do you know what the income and expenses and net income are if you don't have a system? But no, Dr., to answer your question, I don't want to say no.

44:16 I'm just going to say that I tend to look at the third, fourth quarter payments a little bit more seriously because then I kind of have a better idea of what's really happened throughout the year. OK, I see. Thank you, Dr. Thank you, Ralph. Sid, you had something? Actually, that was Pop the Pepper up by accident. I was just celebrating something, Ralph said. And I hit the wrong emoji, so I'm good. OK, no problem. I said what? What were you celebrating? Tell me what you were celebrating. I like to see when I'm celebrating. That makes me feel. Good. Oh, you were talking about the state of Delaware requiring the annual report and their fee. We have so by three businesses, two of them are incorporated in Texas, but one of them is incorporated in Delaware and Delaware charges you $500 a year with that tax that you have to pay. So I was just, I was agreeing with you celebrating that. Yes, you have to be sure you're filing because they got to, they got to get their money and you got to have an agent. And my, my partner is leaving Delaware and she's moving to Florida.

45:20 So we now have an agent to represent us there to get the stuff in the mail. So. Yeah. And and since it's been brought up a couple times, let me mention what a registered agent is. So when you have an LLC or a corporation that is an artificial entity, it's not a person. So every state requires you to have a person that they can send mail to. That is what's called your registered agent. So I act as a registered agent for hundreds of companies here in Delaware because it's something you have to have. But no Sid's right. In Delaware, if you've got an S corporation, the annual fee basically is $225. And if you're an LLC, it's $300 per year.

46:01 Now, I'm not sure why you're paying 500. There could be some other reasons for that, but there is a fee. So you've got to factor that into the decision part. Thank you. Oh, go ahead, John. I got a question. So how do I what if I just want to dissolve the LLC since I haven't been using it? So actually, if you've not been using it and you haven't paid your franchise taxes, it basically dies on the vine itself, John. So if you went to the Delaware Division of Corporations website and you put check my entity status, it will basically tell you whether you're in what now? The states call it in good standing. But what I tell clients is if you don't want to bother with it anymore, just quit paying them.

46:43 Once you quit paying them, they're not going to come after you for the money, but they will let that LLC go away and at some point they basically find it out of existence. I finally did something right. OK, they. Did something right. All right, Ralph, anything else for us? Well, the other thing I just wanted to mention is I want to answer DRS question from earlier because she mentioned that she wanted to know how much to pay yourself. So DRI want to take about two minutes and answer that question. So now that everyone has agreed that this 10 minute month, a weekly check in is a good idea. Dr. What I believe in is the profit first principle and that is come up with a percentage at the front end that you are going to pay yourself from every week's income. So that way you know, hey, and and that can be something you pick.

47:31 I think you should have two things. I think you should have a tax vault where you decide what your tax percentage is going to be. And it depends on your particular situation. So every Friday or every day, every week, when you do this, you take a percentage and you carve out that percentage to your taxable. The second carve out is carving out money for yourself. And that's got to be what it's got to be based on what's going on on the ground. But I think that's how you solve that problem, Dr. And it's that whole concept of profit first, because what happens with a lot of people, and this isn't just content creators, a lot of people profit less whatever's leftover, then that's what they go and spend. And that creates all kinds of problems for people. So DRI, hope this helps you, but I believe in carve out the tax piece so the tax man gets paid. And then the second piece is carve out your percentage so that you get paid because you're going to burn out in your business if you're not getting anything from it. And when you carve it out and you put it into a separate account, then you know that's the money that I can spend on, you know you like Absumo, right?

48:32 So you can spend all those things on. Now that's a bad example because probably Absumo could be a business expense. Let's pick something different. But at whatever you want to spend your own personal monies on when you go to the grocery store to buy eggs to cook or whatever you and your husband want to do. If you're setting that money aside, DRI think that makes it a little clearer. Does that help? Dr. It does. And I do have a tax vault set aside. There's right now there's about $5000 in it. I have my bank Sofi. It automatically transfers about $250 every month over into the vault. But my problem is, is I don't know how much to pay myself. I don't know what the types of questions to ask myself to figure out how much to pay myself. Well, I think that's a great question and I if we didn't have two minutes left, we could talk about that today. Dr. But.

49:26 And again, Dr. honestly, that depends on your situation. It depends on how much money is left. I mean, honestly, I'm a capitalist. I think you want to pay yourself as much as you can. And here's the simple answer, Dr. If you've carved out enough for taxes and you've carved out enough to pay your bills for this month, you know your subscriptions, you gotta pay for any equipment, any cost with your business, then honestly, at that point, everything else is yours. So spend it as you see fit. So I hope that answers your question. So simple example, let's just say you have $1000 that comes in this week. If you put out 25% for taxes, that's $250.

50:08 That leaves $750. They say never do math on a podcast, but I'm gonna make it work. That leaves $750. And then you say, well, I've got to pay this subscription. Let's just say another $250 is going out for bills you've already agreed to. That leaves you $500 to me. That's your money. Carve that out, put it into your personal, you know, set aside account and that's what you can spend simple. It's the revenue, the the net revenue minus the tax vault minus whatever expenses are still coming. And that's why this weekly check in is so vital because you're going to ask yourself those three questions, what came in, what went out, and what is my cash position?

50:49 Because when you ask those three questions, you're going to be able to look at this and say, OK, here is objective information that I can use to make decisions for the next week. And you don't find yourself struggling and going in backward directions. I see. Thank you, Ralph. I appreciate it. Oh, you're welcome anytime. Thank you, Ralph. So any, anything else from you Ralph, before we wrap up today? I just wanted to say this, I'm really excited about the topic that I'm talking about today and I am sincere in saying if you want to get on my calendar for a free 15 minute conversation, we'll put a link in the show notes to do that. But I'm passionate about this and I will help you figure out a plan for you because everybody's different. Everybody comes to this with different situations, different reasons for what they're doing.

51:38 Let me work with you to help you build something and then you can, then you won't feel overwhelmed anymore. You'll be like Sid who feels very confident about his finances. And that way we can move forward with a plan because again, this isn't something that you were taught. So don't judge yourself. Don't beat yourself up about it. But now that you know, you know, and you got to do something about it. Yeah, be a Sid, don't be a John. John. I'm going to throw out, I'm going to throw out something from John's show. You're not wrong, John. You're not wrong. John, thank you for coming up today and and sharing and being so candid and open about your situation. I think honestly, a lot of creators are in similar positions, can relate to what you're sharing today. So thank you for being that person today. I think it really added a lot to this conversation. And Ralph, thank you for hosting this conversation today and of course, for also offering up your Rd. caster duo, which people can apply or enter to to get their chance at your duo. Just go to podcastingmorningchat.com/duo. And a reminder, we're back tomorrow talking all things podcasting.

52:52 And if you have a question about your podcasting journey that you want opinions from other seasoned podcasters, by all means bring that tomorrow. Or you can always go to our website and send in your question to us, and we'll be happy to read that on this show at a later time. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.