Podcast

Learning how to mind and manage money is one of the most valuable skills to develop. Those who manage money intentionally, mindfully, and gain financial literacy have a distinct advantage in business and in life.

That’s why we’re dedicating all our 2020 Blueprint for Success columns in Massage & Bodywork Magazine to financial literacy. Get all the info and links to current articles at ABMP.com/money

Welcome to 2020 Mind Your Money!

Transcript:

Michael Reynolds Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we discuss the business side of massage therapy. I am Michael Reynolds.

Allissa Haines I’m Allissa Haines.

MR And we’re your hosts. We have a special bonus episode for you today for a special announcement.

AH Yeah.

MR Allissa, what is our special announcement?

AH I am so excited. We are here to tell you that for the column we write for ABMP and Massage and Bodywork Magazine in our Blueprint for Success, every single column of 2020 is going to be dedicated to financial literacy. Why, you might ask. I would tell you because learning how to mind and manage your money is one of the most valuable skills to have as a business owner. Those of us who can manage money intentionally and mindfully and gain financial literacy have a huge advantage in business and in life. So welcome, my friends, to 2020 Mind Your Money.

MR All right, so here’s what we’re going to do. So step by step, we’re going to provide a framework to help you mind your money so you’ll feel more confident and competent in your business. And financial literacy is essential in moving from a hobbyist to a professional, to earning a living, to treating it like a real business. And a lot of us are kind of struggling with that and we want to kind of get to that phase.

So financial literacy is deeply empowering. You’re absolutely capable of running a financially strong business, and we want to hold your hand through the process.

AH Through every little step. And I’m going to give you a really rough outline on what we’re going to cover through the year.

But Michael, first thing I want to know is what is the most common money/business question that you hear?

MR Yeah, that’s a good question. A lot of time it’s taxes. Taxes tend to trip people up quite a bit. Questions like how do I pay my taxes, how do I figure out my quarterly taxes, what’s the best way to kind of set aside money for quarterly taxes, just all the tax stuff around that. I find a lot of people get tripped up by that and get themselves in trouble by not paying attention to that.

AH And describe that. What do you mean by “get yourself in trouble”?

MR [Laughing] How much time do we have? I’ve seen a lot of situation where people have not paid either taxes at all or the right amount of taxes for a couple years, and they have this huge back-tax bill that can be very crushing and limited to people. So we want to make sure we avoid that kind of stuff.

AH Okay, that’s even scarier than what I was thinking, which is what happened to me when I got some bad advice. Someone told me that I really didn’t need to worry about quarterly taxes, and then I had my taxes done and I owed like 8 grand and I was completely unprepared for that.

MR Yeah, that sucks.

AH Yeah. And that’s really, really common. It happens to a lot of us. So the question that I hear most is how do I pay myself. And I love this question because there’s actually so many different answers, and we’re going to cover — I think in the third column, we’re going to cover the variety of ways you can decide where your income goes, where your gross income — every penny that people give to you for providing massage — how to decide where it gets allotted and what goes in your pocket and what gets saved for taxes and what gets spent on expenses for business. That’s the most common question I hear is how do I pay myself. And I’m super excited to cover that.

Like I said, going to give you a little brief overview of our outline so you know what’s coming. As we move through the year, I want you to know that you’re going to find links to every column and every supporting video — every column will have a supporting video — and resources, things like a PDF download of an income tracker, and some checklists, and all kind of things; so many I actually cannot remember all the stuff we’ve created right now. But we’re going to cover things from as simple as what forms of currently do you accept, and what do you do — what’s your protocol when someone hands you cash or a check? And right through to advances retirement planning.

So through the year as we work through each column with all the extended resources, we’re going to learn how to handle money coming in, how to decide what’s going out, how to pay yourself, how to plan for bigger goals and advanced retirement stuff. And some of it will be review if you’ve got your money crap together. But if you don’t, there’s going to be a lot of new information there for you, and we’re going to hold your hand through it. And even if you’ve got all your money stuff together, there’s going to be some great new information in there for you too: ideas on how to expand and improve your money habits.

And that’s what I have to say. So you can go to abmp.com/money, and yeah, get ready for a really ridiculous and lucrative 2020.

Anything else for you to say, Michael?

MR I just want to say 2020 is the year you get control of your money. So we cannot be happier.

AH I would say —

MR Get excited.

AH I would say it’s the year you mind your money.

MR [Laughing]. That makes even more sense.

AH And again, go to abmp.com/money for all the info.