In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about a subject that makes a lot of people really uncomfortable, which is money. More importantly, I’m going to be talking about how you can pay yourself as a food blogger and how you can really make this a priority going forward.
As you are structuring your business and really looking forward to what you want your food blog to do for you and your family, you can start to plan how ultimately you can start paying yourself or start paying yourself more.
Why does paying yourself matter?
What’s really interesting to me is that only in the entrepreneur space, do you find people who are working their tail off and working so hard, but they aren’t paying themselves.
I used to lovingly refer to my PayPal account as my magic money that my husband and I could use for special things that we wanted to buy or special trips that we wanted to go on.
I didn’t really take it seriously that that money needed to come into our personal account to let it be something that we started to rely on and to expect.
When we talk about paying ourselves as bloggers, it matters for a few reasons.
- It means that you’re taking your job seriously.If you were working at any other job and you didn’t get paid, you would stop doing the work.
- It also gives you the opportunity to have more opportunities.
- It also can provide you an opportunity to give back.
- Create jobs for other people as your business grows and you scale.
If your business isn’t making any money, or if you’re not prioritizing paying yourself, you’re not going to be able to prioritize, paying other people for the work that they’re doing either.
The impact that paying yourself will leave as you begin to prioritize paying yourself will increase generational wealth. This is a concept that I learned about when I read the Legacy Journey by Dave Ramsey.
This is such a good book for really looking at what wealth can do long-term for your family. It really gave me such a different perspective on why it matters to keep paying myself more. I used to have such a ceiling of what I thought I was worth in terms of what I would want to pay myself.
That perspective just made me waste money in my business– once I shifted my perspective to wanting to bring more money into my family income, it really helped me to take my business more seriously and really start investing in my business differently.
Figure out where you’re at now
If you are not looking at the numbers of your revenue and your expenses and your profit in your business, then I would really encourage you to make this a practice that you are doing on a weekly or monthly basis during your CEO date, and really taking time to review that.
If your business isn’t bringing in any money, then that’s where you need to start. You need to start with thinking through what types of services or packages you could start offering in order to build that income.
Review expenses monthly or quarterly, to review what expenses are coming out and make sure that you’re really using the things that you are paying for.
Another book that I would really recommend reading and digging into is the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. This book really helps you to shift the perspective of paying yourself first, not paying yourself last.
Set goals for yourself
Now, if you’re paying yourself nothing right now, please do not set a goal to pay yourself $5,000, unless your business is making enough money where, you know, consistently you’re paying $5,000 into your savings account.
Don’t set yourself up for failure by picking a number that is going to feel completely unachievable. But if you’re looking at your numbers and you know where you’re at right now, you can set a goal for where you want to be.
Instead if you’re looking at your profit and you’re seeing that you have $500, $1,000, $2,000 in profit every month, figure out what you’re going to do with that money.
What would it feel like to have that extra money sitting in your bank account every month?
What kind of impact would that make in your family?
What would you be able to change about your lifestyle?
What would you be able to save for?
How would it feel to just know that your business is making a financial impact in your family’s life?
If you are feeling like the monetary goal is kind of hard to set and you’re not really sure what that goal would be again, think of another goal. Think of something that you would want to pay for. Maybe it is swim lessons for your kids this summer. Maybe it’s private education for your kids.
Start consistently transfering money to your bank account
Pick a number of what you’re going to consistently start paying yourself every month. If you’re not paying yourself anything, right now, start with a hundred dollars a month, maybe start with $50 a month, whatever you feel like you can commit to making happen.
You will start to see opportunities come up for ways that you can increase your income as you set that goal.
Review & start increasing your pay
Review that on a monthly basis to see if you can increase your pay.
There is no magic number that you have to get to before you can start paying yourself.
But I think if you are able to reframe this concept, and instead of thinking that you’ll pay yourself once your blog is making money, that you commit to finding ways to make money so that you can pay yourself.
Getting in the habit of transferring money from your business bank account to your personal bank account is going to start training your brain to look for ways to increase that opportunity to pay yourself more.
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