I REFUSE to participate in a recession.
There, I’ve said it.
I just choose to refuse… and you know what? You don’t have to participate in a recession either.
It’s relentless in the media, isn’t it? Almost impossible to avoid. The ‘cost of living crisis’; the recession; the endless reporting about tariffs and all the other things designed to make us think there just isn’t enough money going round.
And I know that to not be true.
Here in July, I’ve just had one of my best months in business ever. It’s been pretty amazing. But it’s easy to feel like you haven’t got enough money, even when you’ve got more coming in in a month than you used to earn in a year.
So why is that?
Well, money dysmorphia is real. It’s feeling worse off than you really are. And it’s something that people feel at a range of income levels, wherever you and your business are right now.
Sometimes it’s an emotional thing – we’ve never learned how to feel safe with earning lots of money and being able to have it in our accounts working for us – so we sabotage ourselves and before we know it, the money is gone again.
Sometimes it’s a practical thing. You’re simply spending too much money for the money that comes in. Sometimes this can happen really without realising it, either because you’re not tracking things, or because you’re using credit cards and ‘buy now pay later’ to take advantage of deals but then lose track of how much you’re actually spending.
Sometimes it can mean that in effect you end up spending the money more than once, and that can be a real nightmare.
This is especially the case for business owners who pull money out of their business every month to spend on their bills and costs at home and forget to put money aside for their tax bill.
As a business owner, you’ve got two sets of tax to worry about. The corporation tax paid by your business is due nine months and a day from the end of your accounting year, which you’ll pay from your business account. It’s a cost of running a business.
And then your personal tax bill is payable by the 31st of July and the 31st of January each year. Do you remember to put that money somewhere safe, so that you’ve got it ready to go? I mean, after all, if you’re an employee working for somebody else, that money would be taken off before you got paid. You’d never even see it. But as a business owner, it can be REALLY easy to spend it and then not have the money there when the deadline looms. Uh oh.
The other thing that can make you feel like you haven’t got a lot of money is what they call ‘lifestyle creep’.
Over time, you start to enjoy the fact that you’re making more money. You feel like you should be able to treat yourself to nicer things, so you end up spending more money on things that you used to be more careful with in the past.
You throw a couple of extra things in the basket when you’re grocery shopping or grab stuff at M&S at the station on the way home. You go out for drinks, get a taxi home, book a day out that looks fun. Before you know it, you’ve spent £200.
You get a better car, nicer clothes and book a luxury holiday. Then you start to buy your hand soap at Bath & Body Works or Molten Brown at £18 a bottle, because it ‘smells soooo nice’. You swap your usual toiletries or supplements for pricier ones, delivered every month on subscription.
Lifestyle creep… sounding familiar?!
So what CAN you do to get on top of things, feel better about your money stuff and make sure that you’re not causing a problem for yourself further down the road?
With all my clients – whether they are part of something like the Wealth Action Club; we’re working together 1:1 or as a financial planning client – we always start with a budget planner.
You can get a copy of my Interactive Budget Planner here for just £1!
It’s brilliant and adds up all the numbers for you, saving you SO much time and effort trying to make your own.
The key thing is to work out whether you really have got more money coming in than going out each month. If you haven’t, then once you’re clear on your actual position, you can do something about it – either pay yourself more, spend less, or a combination of the two.
If you’re sitting there thinking “well, I don’t earn the same amount of money each month because I’m self-employed, so how on earth do I figure out or stick to a budget?”, then we should chat about PATHWAY.
It’s my total finance program that’s going to help you build the wealth that you need for your future and your retirement. But along the way, we’re going tidy up all your financial loose ends and get everything else sorted. Including making sure you’re paying yourself the RIGHT amount of money from your business every single month, regardless of how many sales you make.
No more relying on your next launch or big sale to feel safe…
No more feeling like you just don’t have enough money…
How amazing would that be?!
Just click here now to find out more about PATHWAY!
Until next time,
Claire