Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• 3 Major Ways Your Federal Students Loans Could Be Affected In The Next 4 Months

Discussion Topic

• Allissa and Michael answer random money questions

Quick Tips

• Set up an account on IRS.gov for paying taxes and seeing history
• Also record in a spreadsheet

Sponsors

• The Original Jojoba Company
• Acuity
• ABMP

Transcript:

Sponsor message This episode is sponsored by Acuity, our software of choice. Acuity is the scheduling assistant that makes it easy for both traditional businesses and virtual businesses to keep their calendar full. Acuity is the business suite that takes hours of work off your plate so you can focus on the fun of your massage business. From the moment a client books with you, Acuity is there to send booking confirmations with your own brand and messaging, deliver text reminders, let clients reschedule, let them pay online so your days run smoother and faster as you get busier. You never have to say, what time works for you? again. Clients can quickly review your real-time availability and book their own appointments. You can get a special 45-day free offer when you sign up today at massagebusinessblueprint.com/acuity.

Allissa Haines Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we help you attract more clients, make more money, and improve your quality of life. I am Allissa Haines.

Michael Reynolds And I'm Michael Reynolds.

AH And we are --

MR Good morning.

AH Good morning to you too. And good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone else depending on when you're listening. We have an exciting episode today of just money questions left and right. Michael and I have been immersed in money stuff for the past week or two. We've completed a webinar for ABMP that's going to be out, I think, in a couple -- maybe about a month, and my guess is end of October, early November. And we decided to round up a whole bunch of random money questions and answer them.

But first, Michael, whatcha reading?

MR What am I reading? Before I jump into what I'm reading, I need to just make sure our listeners are aware that, no, nobody is burning down my house or anything. My five-year-old is just screaming randomly. [Laughing] So if you hear my five-year-old screaming in the background, it's because Monday is an e-learning day at home, so my lovely wife and five-year-old are in thick -- deep in the thick of e-learning today. There are screams; there's laughter; there's shouting -- all sorts of things. So if you hear that in the background, that's just what's going on in my house, so.

AH It's a family show. That's cool.

MR It's a family show. Yeah. [Laughing] So on to what I'm reading. So in the vein of our money theme for today, I have been reading an article from a fellow financial advisor called "3 Major Ways Your Federal Students Loans Could Be Affected In The Next 4 Months." I bring this up because a lot of massage therapists, a lot of people in general, have student loans. It's very common for many of us to still be working through our student loans and working on getting those knocked out. And there's a few changes that may be coming to be aware of. So there's a lot of stuff in the article, so we're going to link to it in the show notes. I'm not going to go through the whole article, but it's worth reading. The author is -- let me scroll down. The author is Jake -- sorry, that was the view that did not have his whole name.

You know what his whole name is?

AH Northrup.

MR Northrup, thank you, Jake Northrup -- for some reason, I'm not able to find it -- from Experience Your Wealth, LLC, virtual -- or financial advisory practice. And the three things that he's highlighting here in this article are, one, the executive order issued by the president extending federal student loans suspension until December 31st, 2020. So be aware that there may be an extension to the current student loan interest rates and payment schedule to the end of the year. So keep an eye on that to see how that affects you.

Number two, the election, November, obviously, is coming up on the horizon. And there are a number of things that could change. One of them is Joe Biden has provided support for the $10,000 across-the-board federal student loan forgiveness proposed by Senate Democrats as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. So this would be a considerable benefit to many. It's just kind of an across-the-board forgiveness at certain levels. I'll go ahead and just say it; I hope that he is certainly elected for many reasons. This could be good for many of us, so pay attention to that as well.

And then number three, your federal student loan servicer might be changing in December. There were five new contracts awarded to loan servicers, and so that could result in your loan servicer changing. Obviously, the servicer could be better, could be worse, we don't know. Student loan servicers are not known for their outstanding customer service, but just be aware that might be coming as well. So those are a few things to watch out for. And I do recommend reading the article because it has some details on your specific situation, different cases, so it's good to watch out for if you have student loans. So that's what I'm reading.

AH Noted. Thank you. I still do have one little student loan left. Although, I don't think it's a federal student loan. I think, at this point, it's -- the only one left I have is a private, so I don't know if that's going to help me at all, but whatever. I'm just going to keep chipping away at it and paying everything else out first. Whatever.

MR Yeah. Yeah.

AH Our first sponsor is Jojoba. Michael, say it.

MR Jojoba!

Sponsor message Thank you, Jojoba, The Original Jojoba Company, sponsoring this episode, I -- you know how I feel about this, folks. I feel like the products we use on our clients need to be really thought about as the products we use on ourselves because we're in them more than our clients are. I love The Jojoba Company because it is the only company in the world that carries 100% pure, first-pressed quality jojoba. That means they get a little bit less juice from the seed, but the juice that they get is a higher quality, and they're probably going to email me and say, don't refer to it as juice. It is simply jojoba. It is not oil. It is actually a wax ester, and it's the closest substance you can get that's -- it's the closest thing you can get to our skin's natural sebum. Jojoba is nonallergenic. I can use it on any client and every client and not have to stress about stuff. I can use it on an elderly or pregnant client who's also allergic to nuts and not have it be a problem. Ditto that for people with acne issues, noncomedogenic, ain't going to clog their pores. You, my friends, can get 20% off the price of the product when you shop through our link massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba.

MR Thanks, Jojoba.

AH Thank you so much, Jojoba. So yeah. We have assembled some random money questions. Why don't you get started, Michael? Dive in. This is your thing.

MR [Laughing] All right. So we have been asking our community for money questions because we have been putting together the kind of final webinar to go with our 2020 Mind Your Money series through ABMP. And we got some really great questions. Not all of them were suitable for that webinar necessarily, but pretty much all of them are great for the current events happening right now for our podcast to kind of tackle and discuss. So we're going to go through these questions, and we're going to discuss them. So we may or may not know all the answers to them, but we're certainly going to try, and we're certainly going to discuss them.

So first question we got is, "How messy is tax season going to be this year if I took a PPP loan, county grant, and unemployment? I have records for everything, kept the money allocated separately in a spreadsheet, so I can hopefully keep it straight. I do have a CPA as well. I've just been throwing everything in QuickBooks Self-Employed into Other Expenses, whether it's positive or negative, with the 'Ask the CPA' note attached to it." That's a great question. My prediction is tax season is going to be a bit messier, but I don't think there's anything that is going to be necessarily crazy out of the ordinary.

I've talked to accountants about how to handle the PPP loan. They've all said, hey, it's a liability right now on your balance sheet, and then when it gets forgiven, it'll become -- it'll just kind of cancel out. And so these are all things that have been handled before, so I think it'll be a little more complicated, so you just want to make sure that your accountant is up on current events and legislation, which I'm assuming that's kind of an accountant's full-time job right now. So if you trust your CPA and your accountant, then I think you're probably good to go as long as you're keeping accurate records. So the most important thing, in my opinion, is just document everything very, very carefully. The spreadsheet is a great idea, as mentioned here, so put everything in a spreadsheet. Track everything in your accounting software. Just make sure you document everything that is happening so that you have the records available for your accountant to put everything together.

That's my take on it. What do you think?

AH I'm sorry. I had to unmute myself there. I agree. And I mentioned this last week. I actually got all of my numbers together year to date and sent that off to my accountant to make sure that my estimated taxes -- make sure I was paying the right amount, considering the PPP and some of the PUA and all of that stuff. And it was a really good exercise to do, but I had to add -- I added a line in the spreadsheet that I give her that made it clear this is how much I received from the PPP, and this is how much I have received from the PUA, and this is how much taxes they have taken out of the PUA. My state didn't start taking taxes out of the PUA until the last week or two that I was using it in July, so I'm confident they didn't take enough out.

But breaking those numbers out was really, really helpful, and I highlighted it in the spreadsheet that I sent to her and made it really clear, and I think that was really helpful. So I'd say do -- if you haven't started to get your year to date numbers together, it's good to do that now while this stuff is still fresh in your head, while you can still go back and be like, oh, yeah, you know what? I wasn't recording my unemployment or my PUA separately from other stuff that I pay myself for other income streams. So now's a good time to do that. And that's what I think about that.

MR Right on. I will also note that, to the person asking this question, because you are tracking everything, because you're aware of everything, because you have a CPA you're working with, you're documenting everything, you're doing fine. There are so many people that don't document anything, and everything's in a big shoebox, so the fact that you're being mindful of this and you have a professional you're working it, you should be good to go. So you're doing all the right things.

All right. Next. Next question, "Do you have best practices when using QuickBooks Self-Employed for those of us whose accounting doesn't seem complicated enough to pay more money for the next level up? I ended up needing to use Other Expenses a lot in QuickBooks Self-Employed, so I just keep a manual spreadsheet and break those down into additional categories I want to track. Any red flags there?" I have never used QuickBooks Self-Employed, that's my disclaimer. But I have heard from more than one accountant that it is terrible. I'm using -- that's a strong word, but that's literally the word they've used. [Laughing] So I don't know much about it. It sounds like it's not bad for you. It sounds like it's working for you. But I have heard more than one accountant say that QuickBooks Self-Employed is just flat out not very good, and I don't necessarily know why. I haven't really dug into why. I think it's just very limited, and they probably just don't like what we described here, is there's lack of flexibility there. So I don't really have an answer for you.

But my bigger philosophical feedback is I don't think it's that much more money to upgrade, and I think it's usually worth it. So I know that a lot of us are very sensitive to paying more money for recurring subscriptions and stuff, especially right now, but often, I like to make sure we're not tripping over dollars to pick up pennies. If it's like 10 extra bucks or 20 extra dollars a month to upgrade to a version that is going to give you the flexibility you need, that your accountant wants, that probably is going to be worth it. So I don't have a great answer for you, or really an answer at all, but that's kind of my feedback.

What do you think, Allissa?

AH I hate all QuickBooks, so I am not qualified to answer this question in any way.

MR [Laughing]

AH And I also don't know the differences between them, so I got nothing.

MR All right. Not a great answer. Let's move on to something we actually can do better on. [Laughing]

All right. "With lots of commercial vacancies due to the pandemic and more companies having people work from home, what are some good strategies to prepare a microbusiness to start saving to buy commercial real estate?" Interesting. Yeah. So I think we're already in this, or we're about to enter this commercial real estate apocalypse where there's going to be a ton of space sitting open. There's going to be a very unfortunate bubble here with commercial real estate where it's just going to be -- there's so much space sitting vacant because people are working from home. People are -- companies are just adapting so quickly to being able to have remote work from anywhere, and we're going to see a lot of deals on real estate, I think. So as far as good strategies, I mean, it's not really a magical, complex strategy; it's "save money." If you want to buy commercial real estate, my advice is pretty much the same as in any other time: Save up the money for it. Save up a good, strong down payment, or if it's maybe a smaller space that you can buy in cash and it's available to you, then save up and buy the whole thing if possible. I would try to avoid as much debt as possible. But as far as strategies, yeah, save, save, save.

What're your thoughts?

AH I can only agree. I think it's -- it could be worth it to develop a relationship with a commercial real estate agent now who can -- if you're thinking about this sooner rather than later, like in the next year versus five years out, it could be worth it to develop a relationship with an agent now who can keep their eyes open on something that might be appropriate for you and also give you some guidance, maybe hook you up with a commercial mortgage broker. Do the legwork now, more so than just asking me and Michael, to see what's needed for the banks you deal with and what's happening in the area you're in. And just -- I think same as buying a house, be browsing these listings weekly even if you're not -- you're a couple years out from this because it could be really -- it could be informative. You're going to have a better idea of what to look for and what to ask for if you've been browsing listings for a quite a while.

MR And I will add one thing. I guess this could be kind of seen as a "strategy," but I will add one thing to this in terms of how to save. And Allissa, you triggered this in my mind when you said maybe you're a couple years out. So if you're a reasonable amount of time out from this or you have no specific time frame, it might be worth putting your money into an account that gets a little more interest than your regular bank. So for example, if you could buy commercial real estate in the next year or two years or five years, and it doesn't really matter -- you're just kind of saying, hey, I'd like to do this at some point, but you're not time-bound with a specific window of time -- it might be worth putting it in an investment account. Put it into a brokerage account, and maybe even just stick it in the S&P 500 fund.

This is not specific advice by the way. This is generalized education. But a lot of people will put this in an S&P 500 ETF, which is basically just tracking the S&P 500. It's going to minimize your tax liability. It's going to minimize your capital gains, and you'll be able to have that money potentially grow. And you wouldn't really have as much liquidity and flexibility because the market could be down at certain points, and it likely will be. But if you decide, hey, you know what? I'm going to just drop it in the market. I'm going to let it kind of go up and down, and then during a time period when I am up, when I've made money on it, I'll just pick one of those time periods to make my buy. And that way, you're not bound to a specific time, and you actually don't have as much flexibility on time, but you have potential to have more growth for your down payment or your purchase in an account like that. So it's worth thinking about that as well.

AH I can only agree.

MR All right. Oh, man. Next question. "Does a Dun & Bradstreet number matter to a massage business? Should I be manually updating that regularly to build my credit, or is my size business too small for it to make a difference, in this case, single-member LLC with no employees under six figures?" I don't know. Do you think --

AH I love this!

MR No, go ahead. Sorry. [Laughing]

AH I'm sorry. I just want to get excited because I really love this question because I heard, when I took a very basic business finance free community class offered by my credit union, people were talking about this, and I didn't fully understand what they were talking about. And it's, what, a credit score for your business? I don't know. So I was really -- but I kept forgetting to ask Michael, so I'm super excited that somebody asked this.

Michael, what is this all about?

MR [Laughing] So yeah, it's basically a credit score for your business. So I have strong opinions on this. I think it's worth zero for a massage practice. I have owned other businesses that have had a number of employees even bigger than this business described. I currently own a business that has almost 70 employees, and I have not once come across a need for a Dun & Bradstreet number. I'm not saying it's terrible. I'm not saying they don't reasonable work or good things. But I have never had an occasion to need it, especially for a smaller business. So I could be wrong about this. This is strictly my opinion. But I have never needed to worry about it. So I personally would not worry about it. That's my take on it.

AH Okay. Is there a situation in which someone do you think could? Is this a situation where if you want to buy a commercial office building, that Dun & Bradstreet number matters?

MR I think it could. I have never bought a commercial office building, so I don't know. But it could. But I think in the vast majority of cases, it's not something the average solo massage practice will ever need to worry about.

AH That's kind of how I felt when I was in the class. I'm like, it doesn't sound like something that's ever going to matter to me. And there you go.

MR Yeah. I've signed a number of commercial leases, and it's never once come up.

AH All right. What else we got?

MR All right. Next question: "When will banks start processing the PPP Loan Forgiveness applications?" I'm just going to kind of stop there because there's some more details that are just sort of ancillary. So when will they start processing? The short answer, from what I can tell, is fairly soon or in the near future. Banks are -- mini banks, I should say, are waiting to see what happens because our current legislative situation in this country is a mess, and there's a lot of change happening at a rapid pace. And most banks, from what I've seen, are on hold. They're basically saying, hey, just hold off. We're not going to process applications yet.

A number of things have come up. For example, there was talk in the House, I believe, of just trying to make a blanket, across-the-board forgiveness for any loan amount under 150,000. So basically, I think the House Democrats were proposing, hey, for any PPP loan that was under 150, we're just going to forgive it automatically across the board, no paperwork needed. That would be -- the idea was to just avoid a bunch of applications and bogging down the system. I don't think that is going to pass. I think it is probably not realistic with the current environment, but it was talked about at some point. That may resurface. There might be some different form of that. There may be other legislation that adds more funding. So the banks, for the most part, are in "wait and see" mode. And a number of different providers, including Kabbage and local banks, they're all basically saying, hey, hold off, we're going to give you more information when it's time.

So my advice is to just monitor very carefully what your bank is doing. Go to their website. Reach out to them periodically if you need to, if you're not getting anything. Log into the portal where you did the loan and kind of see what it says there. Just make sure you're paying attention to any information they're providing. And as long as they're still saying things like, hey, hold off. We're still working on it, or wait and see, we're not processing them yet, then that's the answer; they're just waiting. There are some banks that are processing it, but from what I've seen, most banks are not yet.

AH Okay.

MR So let's wait and see. Yeah.

AH So wait and see.

MR Yeah.

AH What's the deadline that you have to start applying? I'm sorry, did you say that? I kind of got lost. Like, if you got your PPP issued on June 1st, what's your deadline for applying for forgiveness, or is that not relevant right now?

MR 24 weeks is what it was, but I don't know if that's even relevant anymore.

AH Okay.

MR [Laughing] I would stick with 24 weeks for now. That's the latest I've heard.

AH It's also, what, like a 1% interest on that loan?

MR Yeah.

AH So even if you end up paying a little bit of interest on a small amount before your forgiveness kicks in or something --

MR It's not the end of the world. No.

AH It's not a crisis. It's still pretty close to free money.

MR Yeah. All right. Next Question: "Any thoughts on whether Congress will get their act together and agree upon the next stimulus bill?" [Laughing] How much time do we have for our thoughts, Allissa?

AH I'd say we need a crystal ball for that and also probably a sedative to read on it without becoming enraged in a variety of ways.

MR [Laughing] Yeah. I'll say that I predict that something will happen, but right now, the latest is that the Democrats want to extend a bigger package; the Republicans want a smaller package; they have not been able to agree. The Democrats basically said, hey, we're not accepting the Republicans' package, which is very minimal, does not have any more direct payments, so seems to be still in progress. So yeah. I think we better skip that one before we spend the next three hours just ranting.

AH Okay.

MR All right. "For employees, how bad is the tax deferral going to be come January when it's due to be paid back?" Great question. So first of all, the tax deferral is employer-dependent. So employers do not have to withhold or defer those payroll taxes. It's up to the employer to decide if they want to do that. So you want to first talk to your employer, which, in this case, is probably not terribly relevant to our massage practitioners, who are not employees, but they're typically solo. So talk to your accountant is my advice, and make sure that you are doing what they advise you to do. If it is being deferred, then most people feel that it will have to be paid back. There are some that feel that it could be indefinitely kind of "forgiven." So my advice across the board to everybody is just don't defer it. Just business as usual, just don't take advantage of this because it's basically just kicking the can down the road. So that's my advice on this particular issue is don't defer it. Don't opt in. Just do your taxes as usual. That's what I think.

AH Fair enough.

MR All right. "There's supposed to a federal, $300-a-week being added back into the pandemic unemployment, but we haven't seen that yet. Any idea on when that might be implemented?" I have no idea. [Laughing] Again, everything's a mess.

AH It's a state-by-state thing.

MR Yeah, state by state.

AH In order for states to participate, the state had to buy in to covering a certain portion, and each state is making their own decisions about that. So some states, we saw that happen pretty quickly. In Massachusetts, people were getting back pay as recently as -- as quickly as two weeks ago. They were getting that $300-a-week for the weeks covered by this up to the present date. Some people saw 600 or $900 deposits in their accounts. Some other states have simply not bought into the program; they're not doing it. Some states are doing it, but they have to update their software to configure who is owed that back pay and then make those deposits. So it's going to depend a lot on your own state's unemployment system, and you can probably check it out at your state's .gov website. They'll probably have an update saying if they've opted into it, and if so, what they're doing. So sorry, we don't have a better answer. It's just state by state.

MR Yeah. Thank you for that. All right. Next question: "If you personally saved and can financially afford it, is buying a home right now smart with interest rates so low, or does the recession make it too risky?" Awesome question. So the caveat here is the question is saying, "if you have personally saved and financially can afford it, is it smart?" My soft answer is yes. I say a "soft" answer because there's so much else that can go into this. The last part of the question even says, "does the recession make it too risky?" Well, that totally depends on your situation. So for example, if you have a very stable job in a sector that is flourishing right now, probably something like technology, possibly health care, possibly a government or higher education -- which that might be even a little shaky now, but just in general, a sector that is very, very stable and is doing really well, and you feel that your job is very secure -- and this is more of a general thing because obviously, this is -- goes beyond massage therapists because this is sort of a generalized answer for anybody, so maybe partners, spouses as well.

So as far as massage therapists, though, specifically, does the recession make it too risky? I think in our community, I think, as a massage therapist, it's a really risky time right now. I think if you are maybe the primary or sole income producer in your household as a massage therapist, that's a factor. That to me adds a lot of risk to the equation. So I think it's going to be very personal to everyone. So if you -- like I said, if you're the sole income producer as a massage therapist, that would be a factor in the high-risk column to consider. However, if you have a ton of savings built up and you feel like --

AH And if you can buy the place without robbing your emergency savings, without robbing that 6 or 12 months of living expenses that you have in the bank, then that would make it a little bit safer.

MR Yeah. Yeah, then it is a good time to buy in general. Rates are low; it's a great time to buy. Or maybe if you have a dual-income household, maybe your partner has one of those really stable income sources, that would be a check mark in the lower-risk column, for example. So think about those things. But all other things kind of being factored in, yeah, interest rates are low; it's a great time to buy. The problem is, in so many areas, you're going to have a hard time finding a house because there is so much demand. The housing market is crazy right now, and so you're going to have a hard time potentially finding a place that is a reasonable deal because houses are -- they're going for way above asking price right now in most areas (indiscernible) made it too high.

AH They really are around me.

MR [Laughing]

AH Around me it's insane. We've had like ten houses on our street sell for above asking price. There's bidding wars going on. It's bonkers.

MR Yeah. It's good for me.

AH So Godspeed.

MR Yeah, from a loan standpoint, the -- in terms of getting money, it's a good time to buy. In terms of supply and demand, it's not a good time to buy. Supply and demand would say wait until housing prices are lower. So just think about that. It's one of those really custom situations for everybody.

All right. Last question we have unless Allissa has anymore in her pocket, "What are your tips for organizing receipts, when these days they seem to be a combination of paper receipts I shove in my glovebox, heat-sensitive ones I left on top of the toaster, so the ink disappeared, ones I threw my gum into before realizing they were a business expense, and online receipts in my inbox? I'm kidding. This year, I have for receipts a folder in my car, one in my house, folder in my email for receipts. Every Monday, I go through QuickBooks, attach them to expenses, but in the past, the story was 100% true, gum and all."

[Laughing] All right. So here is my advice for these situations. Have an app on your phone that you use to scan receipts, and do it in real time every single time. This is -- I think Allissa mentioned this in our last episode, I think, or maybe in a webinar we did recently. And this seems really hardcore, but my take on it is always scan in the moment. So whenever I buy something in a store, if that's for a business expense, pop open my phone, pull the app -- I use Scannable -- pop open the app, scan it right there, and then just trash the receipt if you can. If you have a receipt for anything in physical form, just scan it on the spot. If you're eating in a restaurant, ideally post-pandemic probably, then you're going to just -- as soon as the bill comes, you just scan it there if it's a business meal, and just forget about the receipt.

So I'm not a fan; in fact, I'm very anti "leaving receipts around, putting them in a box, putting them in a folder" because we never get around to it later. I shouldn't say "never," but it's very difficult to just "get around to it later," and you end up in these situations. So have the app on your phone. Have it accessible. Every time you get a receipt, scan it right there. If you have an email receipt, make it a habit of, on a regular basis, just downloading those receipts into a folder on your desktop, and then just moving them into Google Drive, or wherever you're going to store them.

AH And I do that in the moment as well. The second I get that email receipt, it gets saved as a PDF to a file on my desktop, or it gets saved as a PDF, and I move it into the Google Drive immediately. That all happens in the moment, takes less than 20 seconds.

MR Yeah.

AH And I will also note my -- I am not always able to scan in the moment, but I don't have multiple places that receipts get stored. If I am out and about, and I -- or in my car or whatever, receipts always go directly into my wallet. And then every day or two, usually -- or it used to be every day. Now I don't leave the house for several days at a time. But it used to be every day or two, I would pull those receipts out and scan them and throw them away. If for some reason you can't do it in the moment, you shouldn't have five different places they go. You don't need a folder in your car and at your office. You need one place, like your purse or your backpack or whatever. I wouldn't have multiple things scattered in multiple places because then you have to retrieve from multiple places, and that makes this a lot more work and therefore less likely to happen.

I don't know. Maybe this is different because not everybody carries a purse or a backpack, but I do. I have a top flap on my backpack, too, that opens up really easily that I can shove receipts into that. I think I started doing that instead of my wallet because it was just a little easier. The backpack is always sitting either next to me when I'm at the office, or it's in the front seat of my car, and it's really easy to grab. But one place -- I wouldn't have multiple folders in multiple places. You need one place for physical receipts, and then retrieve them on a very regular, almost daily basis. And then things that hit your email box, handle them instantly. That's what I think.

MR I agree. Yeah, agreed. Those were some great questions.

AH They are. And I know we've covered some of them before, but it always helps to remind us all of what's going on.

MR Yeah.

AH So there's that.

MR Yeah. Anything else you would add?

AH All right. Oh, I'm sorry. What? Do we what?

MR [Laughing] I just wondered --

AH I didn't hear you.

MR Anything else you would add to our list of questions?

AH There is nothing else I would add.

MR Okay. Then --

AH Sorry. I thought you were asking me who our advertiser was. And it is --

MR Well, I will do that right now. [Laughing]

AH Okay. Tell -- tell the world.

MR [Laughing] Let's get this train back on the rails. Let's show some love to ABMP.

Sponsor message ABMP is proud to sponsor the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, although they may be regretting it at this moment. CE courses you'll love are available for purchase or included for free with your membership in the ABMP education center at abmp.com/ce. You can explore hands-on techniques, complete ethics requirements, discover trending courses like "A Detailed Approach to Low Back Pain" from Allison Denney. All ABMP memberships include 200-plus video-based, on-demand CE classes. If you're not a member, you can still purchase access for single courses or CE packages at abmp.com/ce. And if you still want more from ABMP, you can get it by checking out the ABMP podcast, available at abmp.com/podcast, or wherever you prefer to listen. I listened to a handful of ABMP podcasts this weekend. I am deeply in love with Ruth Werner's "I Have a Client Who…" series, and you should be too.

AH And that's what I have to say about ABMP.

MR Everything ABMP produces is just gold.

AH They don't stink, man. They're wonderful.

MR [Laughing] Yeah. Just so good.

AH It's just so good. Okay. I don't have any quick tips. Clearly, y'all can tell that Michael's doing the heavy lifting for this episode. What are your quick tips, Michael?

MR All right. Couple quick tips we've mentioned before, but they are very relevant to today's topics. I'm going to bring them back around. So a reminder that you can and may want to set up an account on irs.gov for paying your taxes and seeing your payment history. This includes your quarterly estimated tax payments. So if you go to irs.gov/payment, you can set up a profile there, which I recommend. And that way, you can log in anytime, and you can see your payment history. You can see on what day and the amounts you made quarterly estimated payments and general tax bill payments, and you've got that history. And that way you can make those payments online as well, and you can have a clear record for your accountant and tell them, hey, here's how much I paid, and you've got clear record keeping.

Also, I record this in a spreadsheet as well just for backup. So every time I make a quarterly estimated tax payment, I put a line in my spreadsheet for both the state and -- or state and federal, and I say, on this date, I paid this much, and I paid it online, and for state, I paid this much on this date online. And I have that record so that when my tax preparer is putting taxes together come April, then all I have to do is just send the spreadsheet over, say, here's what I paid in quarterly estimates. They factor it all in, it's all nice and clean, and there's no scrambling at that time to figure everything out.

AH And lets them know that you put that into a separate spreadsheet because that expense comes out of a personal account because you are paying personal income taxes, versus out of a business account. Is that correct? Did I say that right?

MR Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah.

AH Yeah.

MR Yeah. So that's in a spreadsheet because I pay my quarterly estimated taxes from my personal bank account, and that's technically the way it should be done. So yeah.

AH And I have -- I started doing this properly the way I was instructed to by you and our accountant. And I also -- in that spreadsheet, I actually have a few categories of other things that get paid out of my personal income but still need to be considered in my tax preparations, like out-of-pocket health costs and interest on my student loans and all that kind of stuff, which has been really, really helpful. It makes it super simple. And yeah. Anyhow, thanks for that info.

MR Yeah. There you go. That's what I got.

AH All right, everybody, if you have questions you want us to answer, clearly we need some topics, so you can email us at podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com. That email goes to both Michael and I. We will respond to you and also probably get your question on a podcast. So send us your thoughts and your questions. Tell someone you love, a massage therapist you love, about our podcast. And maybe, if they're not super savvy with podcasting, show them how to listen to it on Apple Podcast, on Stitcher, on Google Play, on Spreaker, on all -- are we on Spotify? I don't know. Is that a -- I don't know.

MR Yeah. We are on Spotify.

AH We're on Spotify. You can also ask your Alexa device to play the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, and they probably will. So you can do all those things. But tell a friend. And if you like us, leave a review on your favorite platform so other people will help find us and hear that we're not terrible, and that'd be helpful.

That is all I have to say. Did I miss anything, Michael?

MR Nope. I think you got it.

AH Thanks, everybody, for joining us.

MR Thanks. Have a great day.