Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• The Crown, Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher is brilliant 
• The Beginning of the End of the Pandemic

Discussion Topic

• End of year money stuff
• Get all your receipts into a “2020” file
• Have a plan for your accounting
• If it’s DIY, then DO IT
• Hire a bookkeeper
• Do SOMETHING
• Understand how much money you made
• Gross revenue
• Net income
• Owner’s draw
• Apply for PPP Loan Forgiveness (if applicable)
• Contribute to retirement plans
• Solo 401(k)
• Decide on tax deduction or tax-free growth
• IRA / Roth IRA
• Decide on tax deduction or tax-free growth
• SEP IRA
• Update your legacy docs (both business and personal)
• Will
• Digital assets (LastPass delegation, etc.)
• Investment account beneficiaries
• Business continuity
• Buy stuff that you’re going to buy anyway if you need to lower taxable income

Quick Tips

• Consider working with an accountant. We love The Tax Advantage 

Sponsors

• The Original Jojoba Company
• Acuity
• MBB Website Services 

Transcript:

Sponsor message This episode is sponsored by The Original Jojoba Company. I firmly believe that massage therapists should only be using the highest quality products because our clients deserve it and our own bodies deserve it. I have been using jojoba for years and here's why: Jojoba is nonallergenic; I can use it on any client and every client without fear of an allergic reaction. It is also noncomedogenic, so it won't clog pores. So if you've got clients prone to acne breakouts, jojoba is a good choice for them. It does not go rancid. There's no triglycerides, so it can sit on your shelf for a year plus and not be a problem. And that's what also makes jojoba a wonderful carrier for your essential oils as well. It won't stain your 100% cotton sheets, so your linens are going to last longer. The Original Jojoba Company is the only company in the world that carries 100% pure, first-pressed quality jojoba. And we are delighted to be their partner. You, my friends, can get 20% off the price of the product when you shop through our link massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba.

Allissa Haines Hello, everyone. 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 I'm Michael Reynolds.

AH And we are your hosts. Thank you for joining us. Michael, whatcha been reading?

MR What have I been reading? So I noticed in -- we have a trend going on here. I'm reading stuff about current events and COVID and everything. And you have delightful, light reading for us, which is a great contrast here, so I can't wait to hear what you're reading. But what I'm reading is -- actually, I'm listening to a podcast episode from The Daily called "The Beginning of the End of the Pandemic." And the title is fairly optimistic, which -- news titles are prone to be slightly hyperbolic, but it was actually a pretty good episode, in my opinion. It really kind of outlined kind of what's going on on the ground in terms of delivering the vaccine, distributing it. The first person in the U.K. -- the first person in the world that was -- received the COVID vaccine is in the U.K., they interviewed her, kind of talked to some people about their feelings about the vaccine, and just generally just kind of said, hey, this is happening, the vaccine is available now -- well, in limited ways, but it's available now. It's being distributed. It's obviously going to healthcare workers and at-risk populations first, and it's kind of slowly being rolled out. So it's out there, it's available, and this is happening. So I really enjoyed the episode because I've been -- I'm just interested in following this, obviously, like many of us. And so I think it's worth a listen to kind of get just some background on what the state of the vaccine is now.

And then I also wanted to add something to that. In the stuff I've been following, I've been curious about the process of the vaccine itself because a lot of people are saying, oh, it's been rushed, it's not safe because vaccines take years to develop, and this took like nine months. And so I was curious about that as well. And a few things I read have pointed out that, according to these medical professionals I've read, they said that the vaccine is a different process. The process to getting there has been basically developed over the last ten years. But the way this vaccine works is different in some ways than the way other vaccines have worked, which kind of is a logical foundation for why the timeline is faster or has been faster. So it's not like it's been necessarily rushed, in their opinion, but it's been developed building on these building blocks over the past ten years of other types of -- of a different process for the vaccine to work.

And I'm not -- I'm being vague because I'm not qualified to talk about it; I'm not a medical professional. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I'm a guy with an opinion. And I've been reading about these things, and it's kind of interesting to read about the logic behind why it's been developed faster than other vaccines. So I've just been kind of reading about that stuff, and it's been interesting to me. And again, as just a guy with an opinion and no expertise really, my opinion is that I feel like, by the summer, that things will be getting better, that things will be improving, that it will be safer to massage than it is today. At least that's my hope. So again, as a guy with an opinion, with no credibility to back that opinion up, I'm just saying I've -- I optimistically feel like we're going to be in a better place this summer. So that's what I've been reading.

AH That's -- it reminded me, I was listening to some podcast. I think was It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. It's an NPR podcast. I was just scanning for the episode, but I can't find it. But he had some public health expert on who said -- and this was -- must have been like a week before Thanksgiving that he said it: We know that there is a solution to this problem, and we know -- the vaccine -- we know that is going to happen starting at the beginning of 2021. But the decisions we make between now and that time will determine who lives that long to benefit from what we know, what -- the solution that we know is coming.

MR Yeah.

AH And it was very -- it -- I have been thinking about it for several weeks as we make decisions about -- as we made decisions about Thanksgiving and just how I handle the exchanging gifts with my parents, which is going to be a doorstep drop-off. And yeah. It -- that -- I think of it every time I have to make a decision about something I am going to do or not going to do. The decisions we make right now will determine who lives to make it to the vaccine. So anyhow.

MR Yeah. My fear is that people hear, oh, vaccine is here, and suddenly all bets are off and people are just sort of doing their own thing, back to normal. So yeah.

AH Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So a little lighter now, kind of. So again, my "What I've been reading" is actually what I've been watching. I haven't been reading a lot yet, although, I do have two books ready to start, actual paper books I picked up at a yard sale. This -- turns out, one of my neighbors has really great taste in books. And I grabbed a couple at a yard sale a while back, and I am going to start reading from paper soon. And I've also -- frankly, I've been a little bit crafty. I finished a big cross-stitching project that I had been working on. And then I just, last night, finished a very small little embroidery project I was working on. So I'm feeling really good about that. I can't post pictures of them online because they're gifts that I'm giving to people for Christmas. But you'll all see them soon. So that's been really good for me to do something tangible with my hands, and that's been really nice. And while I've been doing that, I have had just some light TV on the background, including super cheesy holiday movies. I've had a couple of them. But this past weekend, I binged the latest season of The Crown -- which, okay, little deep, dark secret, I love royal family stuff, love it.

MR Well, yeah.

AH Not like the gossipy, horrible stuff, but like the historical portions of it. And I find the monarchy fascinating. I've read some historical literature on monarchy in different countries. I want to go back and read more. I love when they take a real-life monarchy and fictionalize it a little bit, which is totally what The Crown is. But it's a beautifully done production. It's just beautiful to look at. And it's -- the costuming and the setup, and it's historically accurate, which I find really fascinating. I also love period films like Jane Austen films and all those kinds of things. Anyhow, so I watched the latest season of The Crown, and Gillian Anderson plays Margaret Thatcher, and she's brilliant. I mean, Gillian Anderson is brilliant in anything and everything but especially the last couple of things she's done, playing Margaret Thatcher in The Crown and also playing the mom and sex therapist in a Netflix show called -- I think it's called Sex Education. It's a British film -- pardon me, a British series. And she's just so good, just so good. And anyhow, I have enjoyed the series The Crown, and if you need something to watch over the holidays or whenever, it's wonderfully done. And that's that.

MR I am in love with Gillian Anderson, by the way. I will watch anything that she's in because I'm an old-school X Files fan.

AH She's -- it's funny -- that's the thing --

MR I fell in love with her back then.

AH I never -- I actually never watched the X Files. I don't watch things --

MR Huh.

AH I know. I don't watch things that are at all spooky-creepy because I get nightmares really easy. So I've seen one or two episodes here and there, like some of the alien episodes. I don't know. Are they all alien episodes? I don't really know.

MR No.

AH They're all like conspiracy episodes, though, right?

MR No.

AH No? Really? Okay.

MR Yeah. There's a weird kind of thread where in the X Files -- even the recent reboot stated the same thing -- it's like -- I don't know if it's like half, but a but good portion of the shows -- or the episodes will be following the conspiracy theory thread storyline, but then they'll intersperse these random, totally isolated episodes that have nothing to do with the conspiracy theory overarching it. And it's just like this isolated, little episode. So it's really funny how they do that.

AH You know what they're called? Those are called "bottle episodes."

MR Oh, really? Oh, okay.

AH Uh-huh. They're called that because -- I learned this from listening to the West Wing weekly. They're called that because you can just insert it anywhere in a season and it doesn't stand alone and doesn’t -- is not relevant to any other storylines.

MR Yeah. Okay.

AH Yeah. There you go. Now you know.

MR Cool. Did not know that.

AH Maybe someday I'll be able to watch it, but I'm still just a little -- I'm very -- even -- I mean, we watch some of Firefly together and I was like, I can't watch anymore because I'm going to have nightmares about the Reavers. So that's where -- that's where I am. Anyhow, who is our first sponsor?

MR Acuity, our favorite online scheduling software.

AH Indeed.

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AH Okay. Michael, tell us what you're covering today. I love it when you cover stuff.

MR You're welcome. I'm covering end-of-year money stuff because, hey, it's the end of the year. It's basically almost 2021. So it's a good time, in my opinion, to talk about some things you can do at the end of the year here in this time frame to get ready and get organized and just kind of get your ducks in a row, so to speak, for the coming year, from a money standpoint -- and a general standpoint, but mostly a money standpoint.

So I'm going to kind of go through a few things here to think about. So let's start with getting receipts organized. So this is something that a lot of us kind of struggle with. Receipts float out there, and they're in paper or they're in digital; they're all over the place -- probably more digital nowadays than paper. But it's pretty daunting for some, I think, to organize receipts. And I want to kind of talk about what "organize receipts" means. All "organize receipts" means is put them all in one place that you can find. You don't have to necessarily be able to immediately find, on May 7th, what you bought at that particular establishment. And I mean, you should be able to find it, but it's not really meant to be this hyper-organized system. The reason you keep receipts is that, if you're ever audited, you want to be able to prove that the transaction happened. You want to be able to have a documented paper trail, so to speak, to back up that transaction in your books. And so that's the purpose of keeping your receipts.

So what I do is, throughout the year, I have a folder on my desktop on my computer, and it's just called "2020 Receipts." And in that folder -- if you have more than one business like I do, you might have subfolders. You might have a subfolder that has Business A and Business B. And so I separate those by business. And so every time I get a receipt, I move it into that folder. And then at the end of the year, I drag all of those into my Google Drive in my folder called "2020 Receipts." And that is my pretty low-maintenance way of organizing everything.

Now, when it comes to capturing them, you have to be diligent about capturing. So every time I get an email receipt from a software company, for example, before I file it away, I save it as a PDF into that folder, and then I file it. Every time I get a paper receipt somewhere, I will scan it with Scannable, or whatever scanning app you want to use on your phone, and I will then send that to that folder, or I will send it directly to Google Drive if that's easier with the app. I will -- if I ever get receipts, in whatever format it's in, I will make sure that the first thing I do before I file it somewhere or throw it away is to scan it or save it. And I've just kind of gotten into that habit, and so that's the habit I've been able to kind of develop to make sure I keep all those receipts handy. So at the end of the year, I just drag it over to my folder, it takes about two minutes to copy everything, and I'm done.

So if you haven't done that, then now is the time to kind of start that process, and if you can, go back and look through your email folders and just kind of try to download as much as possible. But if that's not practical or not realistic, then I would say start now. Start now, and going forward in 2021, start that process of getting in the habit of every receipt you get, you capture immediately and you file it. And then once a year, you can just drag it over. If you prefer to do it once a month or once a week, that's totally fine too. I have a backup system on my computer, so I kind of trust the system. If something happens, I'll be able to get those back before I drag them over. So whatever you want to do, that's my system.

Next, have a plan for your accounting. So I'm going to soapbox a little bit about this and try to be nice about it. But I have seen so much pain and suffering around accounting at the end of the year and at the beginning the year and just all throughout the year, just -- it's -- I've seen lots of pain and suffering about this. And I want to talk about it because accounting is something that sounds scary and awful and not fun. And I'm not saying it's fun, but you don't have to hide from it and avoid it. There's a couple of ways to approach accounting, and that means kind of getting your books in order, understanding your financial reports, understanding how much money you made, stuff like that.

So if you're going to DIY it, be sure you do it. That's super simple and obvious, I know, but a lot of people say, hey, I do my own accounting, I don't hire a bookkeeper; I don't hire a tax person; I do it myself. And they don't really do it themselves because they don't do anything. They don't categorize their transactions. They don't have their books in order. They don't really do their own taxes on time or all that well. And if you're going to DIY it and you're going to do it, awesome. If things are simple enough for that, then do it. If not, please hire a bookkeeper. Please do not be afraid to reach out and get help. This is really, really important. Do something. Pick one lane. Pick a path. Do it yourself and really commit to doing it and getting your books in order so you have these reports, or hire someone to do it. And then my quick tip will go a little more in depth. But that's kind of my opinion on getting accounting help.

And that leads me to the next part, which is, understand how much money you made. This lets you understand how much money you've actually made. I've talked to many, many massage therapists who -- I've said, hey, how much money did you make in 2019? And they had no idea. And I'm not saying this to shame anyone. I absolutely am not because I've been there. I've been in that spot where I was hiding from my financial statements, didn't know how much money I was making, had no clue what was going on. I've been there. So I'm not shaming anyone; I'm trying to be encouraging and saying, hey, when you get a handle on where you are financially, it is so empowering.

AH Hey, can I jump in?

MR Yes.

AH If you've made it this far in this podcast episode, and you are feeling overwhelmed already, or in a minute if, when Michael starts throwing out some terms, you're ready for your brain to shut down because you're scared, you can go to abmp.com/money, and you can see every column that Michael and I wrote for the ABMP magazine this year that was all about money. We had a "Mind Your Money 2020" series, and every column has the column and a companion video and usually a worksheet or a spreadsheet to go along with it to, in very simple beginner terms, say, here, step-by-step, with these six steps, to get control and understand what's happening in your business finances, in a way that's really attainable and not quite so scary. So if you need that, go to abmp.com/money.

Carry on, Michael.

MR Yeah. Yeah. So sorry if I'm losing people already here. I'm trying my best to not make it too boring.

AH I don't think you are. I just wanted to -- I just want to --

MR Yeah.

AH My mission is to meet everyone where they're at. So there we go. All right.

MR Yeah.

AH I love this. So understanding how much money you made, bring it.

MR So there are three things I want you to be able to know at the end of the year or at the beginning of 2021. I want you to know what your gross revenue has been, I want you to know what your net income is, and I want you to know what your owner's draw has been, assuming you're paying yourself through owner's draw, which, I think, most of us are. I think the vast majority of our listeners are LLCs or self-proprietorship.

So the gross revenue is how much you have taken in, how -- what your sales have been, how much people have paid your business. The net income is how much money you've made after your expenses have been taken out. And then your owner's draw is how much you have transferred into your personal checking account from your business account, which is how much you've paid yourself. If you know those three numbers, you're in decent shape. You kind of know what's going on here, and that's good stuff. And again, I know a lot of massage therapists -- and again, no shame, but they don't know any of these numbers. And it's really important to know this stuff so that you can make good decisions, so you can understand what your compensation is for various other things in your financial life. It's just really important, so get a handle on those reports. And if you're using something like QuickBooks or Wave or a spreadsheet or whatever, that'll help you get to that point where you can see those numbers. And you really want to, ideally, be able to just pull up that report whenever somebody asks and just say, oh, yeah, my gross revenue in 2019 was this -- or 2020 was this, my net income was this, my owner's draw to myself was this. And having those reports handy is going to be really, really empowering.

Next, this won't apply to everybody, but if you did apply for -- or you did receive the PPP loan, the Paycheck Protection Program loan, which was available earlier this year, you want to be sure you don't delay on the forgiveness application. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that probably 100% of our listeners are -- I'll say 99% just to be safe, but I'm sure 99 to 100% of our listeners can use the simplified form, which is for those who have borrowed less than $50,000. So if that's the case, you can use the simplified form, which is one page. We talk about it in our private community. You can google it, email us if you can't find it. Tell us if you can't find the simplified form. It's one page. It is really, really easy to fill out. You file it with your -- you send it to your bank or the lender that gave you the loan. And in many cases, we've seen that it's been approved very quickly. Now, it varies based on your lending institution, but the deadline for that is end of the year as of the time of this podcast recording. That may change with legislation, but I don't know if it will. The deadline right now is end of the year. So get that in. Make sure you don't delay on the because we want you to have that loan forgiven if at all possible.

Next, contribute to retirement plans. Now, there's some caveats here. So there are different types of retirement plans. And as Allissa mentioned, the ABMP/money resources that we have available in the columns talk about this in detail. But there are different types of plans that you can have available to you as a massage therapist. You have a solo 401(k). You can have IRA or Roth IRA. You can have a SEP. You can have other things, but these are kind of the general, kind of top choices here. So with an IRA or a Roth IRA, you have, technically, until the tax deadline. You have until April 15th of the following year. So I always still like to say, just make the plan this year if possible. If you have to wait to do the contribution, so be it. But it's cleaner if possible, I think, to at least kind of plan for the contribution or make the contribution, if possible, this year.

And when you're making it, you want to decide, are you doing pre-tax or post-tax? Are you doing traditional or Roth? And I want -- I'm going to try really hard not get too jargony and in the weeds on this. But the difference you want to look at is, do you want to lower your tax bill, or do you want to take advantage of potentially tax-free money later on? So if you've had a good year and you've made a lot of money this year, I'm -- that's probably not a lot of us right now, but -- and let's say, hypothetically, you've made a lot money and you feel like it's advantageous for you to lower your tax bill, you want to lower your taxable income, then you would be considering a traditional contribution, like traditional IRA or traditional solo 401(k) or a SEP contribution, which is pre-tax. That'll give you a tax deduction and will lower your taxable income. If not, if you haven't made a lot of money this year and you don't have a need to lower your taxable income, which is probably many of us right now, then you might favor a Roth contribution. You might favor Roth anyway, but that's also one more reason to do a Roth contribution. That means that you don't get a tax deduction, but the money you put in will grow tax-free. So later down the road at retirement when you withdraw that money, it is all tax-free. So just be aware of the difference.

Those are the two differences and types of contributions, pre-tax or Roth. The deadline for solo 401(k), specifically, in many cases, is December 31st. There are some exceptions. It's beyond the scope of this podcast episode to try to decipher your particular exceptions. But if at all possible, if you have a solo 401(k), it's really good to get that in before the end of the year, especially if it is the Roth contribution. The -- in most cases, the deadline is end of the year. So just plan on -- just be aware of these contributions and these retirement vehicles. If you don't have one set up, maybe consider getting one set up. Email us if you want some help. So be thinking about that.

All right. I feel like I have soapboxed enough about that. Okay. Next, update your legacy documents. The end of the year, once a year, in my opinion, is a really good time to do this kind of stuff. And this will vary based on different situations. But in general, update your will. I think most people, if not everyone, should have a will in place. This is kind of what happens to your stuff when you die. It's morbid to think about, but you want to be able to have a clear blueprint -- no pun intended -- a clear outline or blueprint for what happens to your stuff and who gets it when you die and things like who's your power of attorney for medical decisions, stuff like that. If you haven't updated that in the past few years and you've got a relative or a friend who's on the will that you don't really want them there anymore making decisions for you or getting your stuff, you want to update that will and make sure that's current. There are online services that do it really inexpensively. And I think -- Allissa and I have both used Rocket Lawyer for stuff like this. I've used Mama Bear Legal Forms for stuff like this. There's plenty of online services that will do this fairly inexpensively.

Also your digital assets. Allissa and I both use LastPass. That is a password manager. And so if I die, there are two people that have access to my LastPass: my wife and Allissa. Allissa's my other person that if I die, then either of those people can request access to my LastPass account. And then if I don't respond within a week or something, then they automatically get access because that probably means I'm dead or missing or something. So you want to be able to have easy access available to your loved ones if you pass so they're not trying to go through all this manual labor of hunting down your banking and logins and your Facebook account and all this stuff they're going to have to clean up on your passing. So it's a gift for those you leave behind to have some sort of contingency plan for getting access to your passwords and digital assets.

Also, investment account beneficiaries. At the end of the year, I like to review my beneficiaries on things like my IRAs and my investment accounts. Again, same thing: If I pass, who gets that stuff and who gets that money. So take a look. If it's not current, if it's someone you don't want on your beneficiary list anymore, then you want to change that.

Also, business continuity. If you -- sorry. I keep talking about if you die, and I hate to do that, but it's legit stuff we have to worry about. So if you die or become incapacitated, what --

AH I was going to say, it's really important to note that if you become incapacitated, so --

MR Yeah.

AH Or if you're just, not necessarily incapacitated but dealing with your own thing. I have heard -- I just heard a story where someone had to travel across the country to help their very, very sick and dying parent, and their partner at home had no grasp of how to pay the bills and, moreover, couldn't get into certain accounts. And it was just a logistical nightmare. And when that primary person handling stuff in the household is pulled away for something, to have to keep getting phone calls about what's the login or how do I pay the kids' school lunches is just a logistical nightmare. So it's taking care of people you love after you're dead but also if you're just busy with something else. Okay. sorry.

MR Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So business continuity is important to think about also. So again, if you become incapacitated or die, what happens to your massage practice? What happened to the records? Do you have someone that can keep those records secure, those patient or client records, or destroy what needs to be destroyed, or have a communication protocol for, hey, what happens -- how do you communicate to your clients that you're either dead or incapacitated? How does that loved one manage that process? How does that kind of happen? So business continuity and business -- just kind of handing over those responsibilities is important to think about as well.

I'm going to also end with kind of another tax-related thing, and that is -- I want to be careful about this because people do this wrong a lot, and I'm saying "wrong" very boldly, but I kind of feel that way. So buying stuff that you're going to buy anyway if you need to lower taxable income. Again, this year is not a great case study for this because many of us don't need lower taxable income because there's no income or not much. But in a year that you do have income that you want to lower for tax reasons, it can sometimes make sense to buy stuff this year that you're going to do anyway. So an example might be continuing education. If there's a class you just -- you're going to take anyway next year, maybe you ask if you can prepay for it this year. If you are going to buy equipment, maybe a new massage table, if you're going to buy something expensive that you have to have that you're just going to do, it might make sense to buy it in the previous year so that you lower your taxable income in that year. The wrong reason to do it is just to play with taxes and kind of have these games you're playing with the IRS. Don't just buy stuff you don’t need just to lower taxable income. That's a silly reason for it. But like I said, if there's a logical reason for it, you can think about that as well.

So that's kind of my list for today. There's more stuff, I'm sure, but I wanted to at least give a core outline of some of the basic things that are pretty important, in my opinion. So Allissa, I'd love to hear if there's any other stuff you would recommend as well.

AH I mean, I think this is it. And I think the -- you said "make a plan", have a plan for your accounting and then do it. For me, a big part of it is putting that task on a calendar, either on a weekly or monthly or annual basis. So for me, I don't have to put it on the calendar every week or every month now because I have a very easy and fast routine for managing my business money. And it happens just very easily, typically, on a Monday morning when I'm doing my book -- my business bookkeeping, or sometimes it's Tuesday morning now. But I'm so into my money that I don't have to schedule it or push myself to do it. I just automatically do it. But that said, some of the bigger stuff like collating reports for the tax prep and -- I will put those off until the last possible moment because I have hated doing that in the past.

But this year -- I think partly because I had time -- more time at home, and also I needed to check in with my accountant about my estimated taxes, I actually collated all of the reports year to date -- I think it was like September, October -- to check in with my accountant and be like, do I need to stress out about third-quarter taxes or fourth-quarter taxes? And when I did that, I was like, you know what? I need to just put this on the calendar because my accountant was like, hey, the sooner you have information in to us after the first of the year, the better everything's going to be. and I was like, awesome. So I literally looked at my calendar, and I looked at my work calendar and I saw that the last day of the year that I have patients scheduled is Monday, December 28th. And so the morning of the 29th, I can do my year-to-date bookkeeping. I won't have paid any bills or bought anything that last week of December, so I know everything will be cleared and reconciled. And so I have booked off Tuesday, December 29th, to do all of my -- finish up my year-to-date tax prep and -- bookkeeping and tax preparation. So I'll have, by the end of the day on December 29th, barring illness or something, I will have every report uploaded to my accountant's portal so she can handle my tax stuff.

And I feel really good about that and having that on the calendar, and I have it on my work calendar and my personal calendar, so I can't ignore it. And having that also, when I look at the week ahead, that means the weekend before, I'm going to make sure I have everything ready to do that. And it feels really good. So for me, a big part of it is making the time for it and treating it -- treating that business task with as much respect as a client on the table. And that means that I don't cancel it if I don't feel like doing it. I don't do that task with a TV on in the background -- sometimes I do -- but I do that task with all of the attention that it requires just as if it was a client. And for me, that mindset really works.

Also, y'all know this if you've ever listened to -- I have to treat myself like a puppy, so I need a reward. So I will probably buy my dinner that night as opposed to cooking dinner for the family. I will probably think of something that day or a few days prior and be like, this is the thing I will reward myself with if I can finish this task, which I don't always love doing. I love seeing the results of it. That's the thing. I loved seeing how much money I made, how much money I spent, etcetera, etcetera. And it's a little rougher this year because our incomes are dramatically down. But still, I like seeing how I've managed it and also thinking about how I can do better managing it for the next year. And so put it on your calendar and give yourself some kind of dog treat for it. That's all I have to say.

MR I like that. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you.

AH Thank you, Michael. That was a lot of information, and I really, really appreciate it. I am going to let you cover our next sponsor message because it's kind of your thing, yo.

MR Sure. It is kind of my thing. So I think I talked about this last week as well. So we'll continue one more time this week and talk about our website service from Massage Business Blueprint. So we're going to sponsor ourselves here. We're going to talk about how you can get a website from us, from -- actually, I specifically do it. I personally am the one building your site for you.

And the reason we did this is because we've heard so many stories of massage therapists that they try to get a website done -- and there are some great designers out there; don't get me wrong. But oftentimes, they tell us that, hey, it took six months to even get to this point and it's still not done, it costs too much money, the process was painful, they asked me what I want and I don't know what I want, and they keep asking me questions I don't know how to answer. And it's just a whole painful thing.

So getting a website done is not always easy, and so we wanted to make it really easy. So we have a website package. It's specifically for our premium community members, so do me a favor; be sure you're in the Community first. It's for people in that Community. So once you're in, then you can order a website from us. And the price is $1,500, a one-time setup fee; and $35 a month for all the support, the maintenance, the software, the hosting, all bundled into one. Plus, you get kind of lightweight, on-demand consulting for stuff whenever you want. You can ask me marketing questions whenever you want, pretty open-ended. And if you go to massagebusinessblueprint.com/website, you can see some examples, you can see the process, and you can place an order for a website there. So again, we really did it just to provide a solution for massage therapists who would like an easy process. And we do it in three meetings, and it's about three or weeks to -- from zero to launch. So we'll have your website launched within 30 days, assuming you stay communicating. And we do it three meetings, and we're done. We make it really easy. You won't have to worry about it. So massagebusinessblueprint.com/website.

AH Thank you, Michael. Hey, what's your quick tip this week?

MR I know. I'm just banging this drum, but my quick tip is -- I want to continue this: Consider working with an accountant. And the reason I bang this drum so loudly is I just see so much pain around this. I see so many people that -- I love them dearly and I want them to have a pain-free experience. And so they want to DIY it. They want to do it themselves. And some people are very qualified to do it themselves. But so many people, they really would be much better off paying a little bit of money each month to have an accountant do their books for them and then a little bit of money to have their taxes done properly. And the peace of mind and the lack of pain and high maintenance-ness that will go away -- that will happen as a result -- I'm really being awkward about this, but -- that'll happen is just so worth it. It's so worth it to have someone professionally doing your bookkeeping, doing your taxes. It's not that expensive. Do not trip over dollars to pick up pennies. Just consider getting some help if it's at all possible and if it's appropriate for you.

AH And I'm going to jump onto that by noting that you don't have to pay an accountant or a bookkeeper monthly. If you're fine keeping your books, if your business is simple and it's not a problem for you -- I do this -- it's still worth paying for tax preparation from a real firm versus H&R Block because even though I only pay my accountant once a year, under $300, to prepare my personal and Schedule C and Schedule E and whatever returns -- Schedule K, I don't know -- to --

MR K-1?

AH Yeah, that one. I don't even know. So anyhow, even though I only pay like 300 bucks a year to have my tax prep done, I have an accountant who I can email questions to or call at any time, and she answers my questions because I'm her client. So this year especially, people saw how important it was to have an established relationship with someone they could ask questions to because of PPP and unemployment and how we treat the EIDL loan. And there are so many questions that people had this year, and they didn't have a professional to ask them to because they didn't -- they don't have an established relationship with someone.

So -- and I got to tell you. I used to pay a lot more for my tax preparation because I was using a local boutique firm. And I love the guy, but I was paying like $750 a year. And then I realized that other accountants don't necessarily charge that much. And I talked to my guy, and I was like, here's the deal: I don't think I need to level of services you provide, I'm not using you. And he's like, no, you're absolutely -- you're not -- you don't need me to my full capacity, but I also am not giving any discounts for that. And I was like, okay, thank you so much. I changed accountants, which was painful to do because I loved my guy. But l love paying under $300 a year for tax prep and having access to Kim and Julie at the Tax Advantage all the time. And it's been a good thing for me. So just know that, even if you're not going to do a monthly bookkeeping situation -- you should if you want to. But even if you're not, just having an established relationship with an accountant is just priceless, priceless.

MR Yeah. And if you don't have someone and you want to meet Kim and Julie, email us. We will introduce you. They work with us and a whole bunch of our listeners too. So let us know.

AH And I'll put their website in the podcast notes as well.

MR Cool.

AH So hey, everyone, thank you for listening. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, let us know, podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com. If you want to join that premium community that Michael was talking about, you can go to the website, massagebusinessblueprint.com. You can click on the Join button or click on the Community button. There's like 20 different buttons that will get you to the right page. And if you are an ABMP member, we have a link to go through their portal for membership and get $5 off our monthly membership of $19.95. Is it $19.95, Michael?

MR That is correct.

AH Yeah. So you get 5 bucks off of that if you're an ABMP member. But all the information is at massagebusinessblueprint.com. I hope you have a wonderful, pre-holiday, mid-holiday season. And have a great day. Bye.

MR Thanks, everyone.