financial self care 2019 Archives - Solopreneur Profit Coach |

How to Tailor Your Income Goals to Your Life
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How to Tailor Your Income Goals to Your Life

Financial Clarity, Personal Spending, Small Business, solopreneurs

How to Tailor Your Income Goals to Your Life

One of my favorite sayings comes from the artist-turned-business mind Jennifer Armbrust: “A business is a needs-fulfillment machine.” Your business exists to support you; to fulfill your needs. However, if you don’t have a clear picture of what those needs are, it can be difficult for your business to fill them. This week, I’m suggesting that to really financially care for ourselves, we investigate the true costs of our lifestyles. By doing so, we will be able to make informed decisions about what income goals we’d like our businesses to meet.

The Process

Time to take a realistic look at how much money you’re spending every month. Dig up the past three months of your bank and/or credit card statements. (For most of us, these should be available online). Go through line by line to see where your money is really going. Total up all the expense categories, i.e. groceries, utilities, rent, etc.

Once you’ve got your totals, you have a realistic picture of how much money you need on a monthly basis. At this stage, you may find it helpful to look critically at your lifestyle, and see if there’s anything you’re interested in culling. If you’re looking for some ideas around creating a budget or spending plan, I’d recommend these articles of mine. Click here.

Set Informed Goals

Whether you decide to create a spending plan and reign in your expenses, or feel satisfied with your lifestyle costs, you now have a complete picture of your financial needs. At this point, you can now set informed income goals that are designed to meet those needs in your personal life. Without this crucial information, your goals will just be shots in the dark, aimed at an amount of money that “sounds nice” but doesn’t tangibly satisfy a need.

Additionally, once your have this information, you can also take a look at how your business is doing in its current state. Is it making enough to support you? Whether you’ve got a side hustle or something you want to stretch into a full source of income, checking in with this question is important. If your answer is no, you can start to strategize around how you might close that gap. For more ideas on this, check out this post.

I hope this post inspires you to keep working to create a business that truly meets your needs. If you would like to work with an accountability partner and guide to identify your values and shape your finances around them, check out 4 Week Money Refresh, a package of 4 private 1 hour personal financial coaching sessions on early bird sale through April 15th!

☮

Angela

This article was originally posted in 2019 as part of a month-long series on financial self-care. Specifically, I’m focusing on what you can do with your money to take care of yourself and improve your business in 2019. You can read the whole series by clicking here.

Image: CoWomen

By Angela Keller|2021-04-12T11:51:40-07:00April 12th, 2021|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Spending, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: analyze your spending, business goals, business planning, business strategy, exercise, expense analysis, expense tracking, financial education, financial needs, financial self care, financial self care 2019, goal setting, income goals, needs-fulfillment, self-audit, self-reflection, setting goals|0 Comments

Love Your Future Self
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Love Your Future Self

Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings

Love Your Future Self

One of the best forms of self love is this: put some money away for 65 year old you! Starting an IRA is the perfect way to do this. Beginning to put money away now so that you can take care of yourself in retirement will vastly improve your life as a whole. It’s important to remember your future self, and make sure you aren’t only treating yourself today. What better way to care for yourself?

Give Yourself a Gift

Make contributing to your IRA a fun and regular occasion. Consider it a gift to both your present and future self! Perhaps you could give yourself the gift of a deposit to your IRA for Valentine’s Day. My sister does this for herself on her birthday every year, to celebrate her present and future self!

Invest!

It’s very important that when you do contribute to your IRA, that you remember to invest it. Don’t simply let it sit in the account in cash. If you let it sit, it’s not actually accruing any more value, and therefore will not expand beyond the amount you put in. The longer you let it sit, the more time that could be used to expand your investment goes by.

Play the Long Game

Remember, this is long term money. You won’t touch it for years, so don’t worry about how much your investment increases or decreases in value today. You are in it for the long haul!

For more specific info on types of IRAs, here’s the IRS’s info page, plus a helpful article from NerdWallet. I love to talk to people about IRA’s and how setting up Profit First can make saving for retirement more possible, so if you’d like to chat, check out my services page and schedule a curiosity call!

☮

Angela

Image Source: Ivan Jevtic

By Angela Keller|2019-02-21T02:09:06-08:00February 21st, 2019|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset, Personal Savings|Tags: february, financial self care 2019, investment, IRA, retire early, retirement, retirement planning, self love, valentine|0 Comments

How to Set Informed Income Goals
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How to Set Informed Income Goals

Financial Clarity, Personal Spending, Small Business, solopreneurs

How to Set Informed Income Goals

This article is the fourth in a month-long series on taking care of your finances as self-care. Specifically, I’m focusing on what you can do with your money to take care of yourself and improve your business in 2019. You can read the whole series by clicking here.

One of my favorite sayings comes from the artist-turned-business mind Jennifer Armbrust: “A business is a needs-fulfillment machine.” Your business exists to support you; to fulfill your needs. However, if you don’t have a clear picture of what those needs are, it can be difficult for your business to fill them. This week, I’m suggesting that to really financially care for ourselves, we investigate the true costs of our lifestyles. By doing so, we will be able to make informed decisions about what income goals we’d like our businesses to meet.

The Process

Time to take a realistic look at how much money you’re spending every month. Dig up the past three months of your bank and/or credit card statements. (For most of us, these should be available online). Go through line by line to see where your money is really going. Total up all the expense categories, i.e. groceries, utilities, rent, etc.

Once you’ve got your totals, you have a realistic picture of how much money you need on a monthly basis. At this stage, you may find it helpful to look critically at your lifestyle, and see if there’s anything you’re interested in culling. If you’re looking for some ideas around creating a budget or spending plan, I’d recommend these articles of mine. Click here.

Set Informed Goals

Whether you decide to create a spending plan and reign in your expenses, or feel satisfied with your lifestyle costs, you now have a complete picture of your financial needs. At this point, you can now set informed income goals that are designed to meet those needs in your personal life. Without this crucial information, your goals will just be shots in the dark, aimed at an amount of money that “sounds nice” but doesn’t tangibly satisfy a need.

Additionally, once your have this information, you can also take a look at how your business is doing in its current state. Is it making enough to support you? Whether you’ve got a side hustle or something you want to stretch into a full source of income, checking in with this question is important. If your answer is no, you can start to strategize around how you might close that gap. For more ideas on this, check out this post.

I hope this post inspires you to keep working to create a business that truly meets your needs. If you’d like to work with an accountability partner or need coaching around this, please check out my service packages and don’t be afraid to schedule a curiosity call!

☮

Angela

Image Sources: rawpixel, Melissa Askew

By Angela Keller|2019-01-24T21:50:38-08:00January 24th, 2019|Categories: Financial Clarity, Personal Spending, Small Business, solopreneurs|Tags: analyze your spending, business goals, business planning, business strategy, exercise, expense analysis, expense tracking, financial education, financial needs, financial self care 2019, goal setting, income goals, needs-fulfillment, self-audit, self-reflection, setting goals|0 Comments

Know What Your Numbers Are Telling You
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Know What Your Numbers Are Telling You

Bookkeeping Business, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes

Know What Your Numbers Are Telling You

This article is the third in a month-long series on taking care of your finances as self-care. Specifically, I’m focusing on what you can do with your money to take care of yourself and improve your business in 2019. You can read the whole series by clicking here.

In the last installment of this series, I talked about how important it is to separate your business and personal finances. Doing so gives you access to a lot of important information about your finances. However, it’s also important to know what to do with that information once you have it. This requires some analysis. Let’s dive in:

Know What Your Numbers Are Telling You

Look back through your financial records for the year. Figure out what products, services, or other sources brought in the most revenue. Identify which months you made your largest and smallest amounts of revenue, so you can understand the rhythm of your income.

Do the same for your expenses. Did you have surprise expenses come up that caused you problems? How can you plan for these surprises in case they happen again? For many people, taxes are a surprise expense. You can plan more effectively once you look at last year’s tax expenses, and prepare for upcoming years.

Solopreneur Paycheck

Look at your total revenue. Did you pay yourself? Did your business pay you money? If so, move money from your business to your personal account. In the Profit First system, Owner’s Pay and Profit accounts are used to divvy up income and ensure that the owner is getting paid. This is called paying yourself first, an important practice for any business owner. Actually separating your income from the other categories, like savings for operating expenses and taxes, is key to a thriving business.

Bringing It All Together

By analyzing your finances and gleaning all this information, you are ultimately able to tie loose ends and create a financially streamlined business. Strategizing to prepare for surprise expenses and taxes, offer more of your most profitable products or services at the optimal time of year, and remembering to pay yourself all contribute to financial success. If you’re interested in doing this analysis work with some professional help, I’m happy to speak with you. Take a look at my service packages and schedule a curiosity call. If this has piqued your interest about Profit First, download the first 5 chapters for free here on my website! I do hope this post helps you find some financial insights into your own business!

☮

Angela

Image Source: Martin Sanchez

By Angela Keller|2019-01-18T05:56:17-08:00January 18th, 2019|Categories: Bookkeeping Business, Profit First, Small Business, solopreneurs, Taxes|Tags: business expenses, business finances, create your own paycheck, expense analysis, financial self care 2019, how to, pay yourself first, save for taxes, self-audit, solopreneur paycheck, tax prep, tax preparation|0 Comments

Why You Need to Separate Your Business and Personal Finances
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Why You Need to Separate Your Business and Personal Finances

Banking, Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, solopreneurs

Why You Need to Separate Your Business and Personal Finances

This article is the second in a month-long series on taking care of your finances as self-care. Specifically, I’m focusing on what you can do with your money to take care of yourself and improve your business in 2019. You can read the whole series by clicking here.

If you’re running a small business, and especially if you’re a solopreneur, chances are your business finances are very intertwined with your personal accounts. When you’re first starting out, it might seem sensible to not open the extra account. But if you want to tend to your business finances, separating them from your personal money is the first step you need to take. Here’s why:

If your business and personal finances are mixed together, any financial information you need about your business is going to get murky, fast. From this unclear standpoint, it can be very difficult to tell whether your business is supporting itself or not. It’s also hard to make decisions about your business spending when your personal spending is mixed in. Separating the two allows you to clearly see where your money is going in your business. Clear financial information is a must for tending to your business finances. It’s what will help you run a more profitable business!

Why You Need to Separate Your Business and Personal Finances: At Peace With Money Separating your accounts also makes things much easier at tax time, when you need that information anyway. Having your accounts separated and that information readily available means you’re less likely to give up and overpay on your taxes. This means more profit for you.

Here’s your step for the week: go ahead and open a business bank account, and transfer your money. As an added bonus, you can download the first 5 chapters of Profit First and use my Profit First Calculator to calculate your amounts for each account. If you’re looking for some support or encouragement, check out my services packages and book a discovery call with me.

I hope this gives you some of the motivation you need to get a jump on your business finances. Happy account-opening!

☮

Angela

Image Sources: Harshal Desai,

By Angela Keller|2019-01-08T01:17:11-08:00January 8th, 2019|Categories: Banking, Bookkeeping Business, Financial Clarity, Profit First, solopreneurs|Tags: accounts, advice, banking, business, business accounts, business bank account, business finances, financial self care 2019, self care, separating personal finances|1 Comment

Working on Your Finances is Self Care
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Working on Your Finances is Self Care

Financial Clarity, Money Mindset

Working on Your Finances is Self Care

It’s that time of year: time to make New Year’s resolutions. Many of us are focused on doing better for ourselves. We often resolve to do things like “exercise more consistently,” or “learn new things.” One habit I’m adopting this year is stretching at the end of my daily walk.

These self care habits and regimens are all well and good, but one area that gets overlooked is your finances. This is an unfortunate oversight. Our money is so connected to our quality of life, so if we really want to treat ourselves well, looking after our finances is one of the best things we can do.

If you’re here reading this blog, then you’ve already begun to take the first steps towards working toward financial organization and freedom. Congratulations! This blog is a great resource, and I suggest clicking around on some things that interest you anytime you need a little financial education. One of my favorite posts, “Money Doesn’t Need to Be Scary,” contains a lot of great resources for financial self-education. Give it a whirl!

As we go into 2019, I’m focusing on this idea of financial organization as self-care. To kick the new year off, I’m releasing a series detailing my top three money moves for financial success this year. These insights are geared towards solopreneurs and intended to help you get on top of your business finances. [Edit: you can read the full series here.]

In the meantime, reflect on your financial state of affairs. Perhaps you’d like to check out my exercise, “Three Steps to Financial Clarity.” This will give you a good snapshot of where you are in your finances and where you’d like to go. If you’d like to talk to someone more in-depth about your business finances, don’t hesitate to schedule a curiosity call. You can also check out my services packages to see if they might help you get on the right track this year.

☮

Angela

Image Sources: Wolfgang Hasselmann,

By Angela Keller|2019-01-08T01:16:45-08:00January 1st, 2019|Categories: Financial Clarity, Money Mindset|Tags: 2019, business finances, financial advice, financial clarity, financial self care 2019, goals, mindfulness, money priorities, new years resolutions, personal finance, resources, self care, self education, setting goals|0 Comments