S01E24: When finances are frightening

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda open up about their current financial states, and their relationship with money and business. 

Next week Sam and Matilda will break down how they bounce back from set backs. 

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

Write to Riches by Renee Rose (also check out her Author Abundance Central group on Facebook): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09RW43WWS/

Becca Syme: https://betterfasteracademy.com/

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the Self Publishing Mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of Young Adult Books About Magic, Myths and Monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Matilda Swift here with my co-host, Samantha Cummings, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our Mastery Through Missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is going to be budgeting and financial planning, which sounds very scary.

So before that, let's do our wins and winches of the week.

Sam, what are yours?

I have had a pretty good week, actually.

I was gonna say a great week, but it was just pretty good.

I finally hit my midpoint on my edits for the book that I'm working on, which was what I wanted to hit this weekend.

So I happily, I've got a checklist on my wall over here, happily checked off the last two items that I want to check off today.

And yeah, I'm heading straight into edits next week to try and hit my next target.

So really happy that I got there.

And I also checked on Amazon for my book, Curse of the Wild, just to see.

I just like to look at the ratings every now and again, and found that my, I think it was the paperback version on amazon.co.uk had my highest yet ranking that I've noticed anyway.

So I'm going to say it's my highest ranking, which is like 300 and something, which for me, it's like a lot of reviews or anything.

I've had two great reviews recently, and I think that that's really helped bump it up.

And yeah, like very happy for a small win.

How about you?

It's a big win.

It is a big win.

Yeah, I've had, I was going to say a packed week.

I feel like I say this every week.

I've had a really busy week.

I'm in a local production of Midsummer Night's Dream next week, which is six performances next week.

And it's been so much fun, like performing and rehearsing.

I'm not really bothered about the audience.

It's just a nice thing to do with a group of people.

I'm not from the town where I live, so I've only lived there a couple of years, and it's just such a nice way to make friends with people and to do something a bit different and fun.

I think it's a creative thing.

It's a creative endeavor without any stakes, which I think writing used to be for me, and now it isn't.

And I don't think I'm a great actor, so I don't really worry about my performance.

I'm just there to have fun.

And I'm one of the fairies, so really just an agent of chaos.

So I've just had a lot of fun doing that.

I'm obviously very busy.

We had our last dress rehearsal today.

So it was at the theatre for four hours.

As well as my whinge.

So that was my whinge, I think.

It's just like fun creativity.

My whinge is, I spent the entire morning just getting mired in the box of tech despair.

It's one of those days where I set out to do one thing, and it just exploded into a thousand things.

And none of them went correctly.

And it really felt like, you know, when you're in something and it feels very bigger than it really is, you're just like, this is a symptom of a bigger thing, or this is, it represents a bigger thing.

It just feels like so many things in self-publishing are like this, that I have the time, and in my day, it was actually, I have the time if everything goes perfectly, and I'm making myself to do this based on there being no problems.

But there are always problems.

So there are even just problems in terms of like the platform has changed, or I've forgotten how to do this since I last did it, or I want to do it slightly differently, I need to do some research.

And it just feels like I am setting myself up for failure by not like factoring that in.

So the thing that I wanted to do was a really great thing.

So like I wrote a short story this week, another win, if you can read about that.

I wrote a short story this week that's going to be part of a bigger bonus package that I'm putting together for my books.

And I finished it, and I proved it, and it was great, and again, that took longer than I thought it was going to, but fine.

And I thought, I want to send them a newsletter back.

Actually, to do that, I needed to put it on Book Funnel.

Then I wrote, actually, I also wanted to put it on my website while I'm doing that, but that wasn't quite exactly the same format as other books I've put on there, so I had to change that.

I needed to make a separate landing page for that, because it's a different audience.

Then I wrote, I was like, if I'm going to do that, I need to have another automation.

Then when I was in my automations, I realized because I've changed something with books recently, I had to make another change.

Then I realized because I'm going to change my newsletter weekly, rather than monthly, I have to change something else in my automation.

Then I couldn't use a template.

It just went on and on and on like that.

And it was just really dispiriting and defeating for a thing.

I wanted to do a nice, fun thing that I thought would be an unusual marketing tactic that really feed into my strength.

And here I am now, just playing tech support.

And it was just, that's my whinge of the week.

And I think it is really my whinge of self-publishing in general is that I wish there were a way to...

I don't know what I wish, actually.

I wish that weren't true, I guess.

It's just like I wish I were in the situation.

But really what I wish were that I were able to be more lenient myself for the things that I'm just not as adept at and not as interested in.

So I am a creative person.

And that is an unusual skill.

An unusual skill is being able to write well, and I have that skill.

So I should celebrate that and just not beat myself about the fact that I'm not also a great website designer and marketer and business manager.

And on the topic of today, financial planner and organizer.

I cannot beat all the things, and I need to plan accordingly and make more time for things that are not my strength.

So that does feed into today's topic.

So we will move into that, and it is you to ask the question today.

Yes, so the topic of the week is what's your budget and finance situation looking like?

I don't mind starting off with this, but if you want to start, I will see what you say and then feel either worse or better.

Yeah, so it's interesting.

So we plan these topics, and we kind of try and find four topics that belong together under a similar umbrella that are things that we are thinking about currently.

And I think because we both have been talking about money generally and putting more money to ads, this has come up.

And I couldn't even really remember how much we've done on it before.

So I looked back today at the podcast previously and the fourth episode we did was about money.

And when I was thinking about what to talk about today, really a lot of it was sort of startling me, similar to the episode we did back in, it must have been five months ago, so back in episode four.

I listened to it and I made some really optimistic big promises and I basically haven't done any of them.

So I think this episode is an incredibly useful one and it is very, very helpful to be forced to come up with a topic that I clearly don't want to talk about or think about.

This is definitely an area where it's just not my strength and I don't know why I think that if I don't think about it, I will magically be running a business without thinking about it.

Yeah, yeah.

Wholeheartedly agree.

Like money, it's not just even money, numbers aren't my strength.

So I'm dyslexic and numbers cause me like severe panic and anxiety.

I don't understand how numbers work.

It's another language.

And so money, like leading on, is just something that my brain can't wrap itself around.

And I think that because of that, because I'm so bad at it, it's not that I can't learn it, but I just, yeah, the idea of thinking about it or spending time doing anything around it is, it's off-putting.

I think the problem with self publishing is though, that like there's not a thing to learn.

So if all you had to do, if you knew absolutely what you had to do was write great books, right?

So say you had to like, no, you had to write great books, and then you had to spend a year on Amazon ads, and you had to just follow a program and learn how to do it and test it and do it, and you had to invest a specific amount of money and then spend time doing that.

I would be really good at that.

I'm such a good study, but I'm not a good, I'm not a natural entrepreneur.

I've never really wanted that.

I've never pursued things like that.

Like in the UK, we are a thing of like the young enterprise club.

You can join at school, never joined it, wasn't interested, didn't want to form a business.

And it's interesting that I think quite a lot of people who I know who are successful at self-opening have also had other entrepreneurial things in their backgrounds.

So I think I'm fine with numbers.

Like I had to do maths as part of my degree.

There's nothing, I do budgeting and things at work.

I love a good spreadsheet.

It is just one of those things, like a lot of stuff in self-opening where there's a million ways to do it.

And the numbers part of it is sort of irrelevant and the money part of it is sort of irrelevant.

It's that I don't know what I should be doing and I could be doing much more than my budget will allow for.

We are in two complete, as usual, we're two opposite ends of the spectrum.

Because I feel like, I don't, I mean, it's not like I feel like I know what I'm doing, but we've talked about this before where I'm very happy to throw myself at something and not worry about failing.

So I, there are so many things that I'd love to throw money at and try.

And like, and it doesn't, wouldn't bother me if it wasn't the right thing.

Like I've got a list of stuff that I'd love to try.

But I don't want to spend the money or I don't, I don't feel comfortable making a budget and then using that budget.

Which is like a different, just a different thing.

I mentioned to you earlier this week that I saw something Becca Syme posted.

So I'll make an experience in the show notes because she did have some great posts about this.

And she posts, she's got a good post on threads and I want to say it would be Instagram.

She also does a YouTube video podcast, which she also makes it into the podcast now actually.

So yeah, she's lots of places you can find things about Becca Syme.

She's a cozy author, but she's more, I think more generally well known as the strength coach for authors.

So she had, and she's very, her strength is really like, she's incredibly insightful about how different people work and think.

And she's that's also why she's strength coach.

She's very able to kind of take a step back and look at what isn't working for somebody and why, rather than just focusing on her own self.

So she had a post this week that was about investment versus speculation.

And that really felt like it clicked something for me.

So you can do the same action for two different purposes depending on your stage of career.

So if somebody is a six-figure author and maybe they've only ever done Facebook ads, but their books are consistently selling, they've got a good back list.

If they were to start Amazon ads for the very first time, they would be investing in their career.

They would make some mistakes in the adverts and they would maybe take the time to make money from the adverts, but they would know that they have a product which brings back return on investment, and they can, once they've learned the ads, make money on them.

If you are someone who you have, you know, you're still kind of trying to get the engine to turn over on your career, you're speculating.

You don't even know if your books are to market enough to be able to return a good investment, on your investment, and turn on your investment.

So you're having to both try and learn the ads platform or whatever ads platform it is, and also understand whether the failure is because you don't know how to use the ads platform, or because you don't have enough products or you don't have the right products.

You're trying to test too many variables, so you're speculating.

And it might be that actually your books, if you could magically kick them to a high rank, you could keep them there.

Or it might be that your books, if you advertised on Facebook rather than Amazon, would do really well.

You just don't know if there's too many variables, and you are speculating on whatever you're trying to do.

And that makes me really uncomfortable.

Actually, I'm not a speculator.

I am someone who got a smartphone after maybe every person on the planet got a smartphone.

Like, I am not someone who finds it interesting to be doing things first.

Which like I like doing adventurous things.

I like doing unusual things.

But I don't really particularly love change.

I don't have uncertainty.

Unless it's uncertainty, it will definitely be fun and it will be a good story either way.

Where I was like, how I lost a thousand pounds on ads in one day is not a fun story either way.

It's rubbish.

So yeah, I'm not a speculator.

And it just makes me constantly make the same mistake again and again.

Where I will speculate a very small amount of money.

Then I won't really know how to evaluate what I've done.

And I won't want to look at it really.

And I won't want to spend time looking at it.

Because I just think, I don't know what I'm doing.

And I just want to throw my hands up and not face it.

Which is terrible.

And it's not a good way to be.

And I don't like that about the way I'm doing it.

And I want to approach things differently.

But I can see myself currently doing that now with Amazon ads.

And I'm really annoyed with myself doing that.

I have just started.

I don't want to get into talking just about ads.

Because that's just a headache.

But I have just re-kicked my Facebook ads into gear.

With the kind of idea of, I know that I have set myself a budget for Facebook ads.

I just need to spend that budget.

And then try and figure out, at the end of the month or at the end of two months, what worked, why it didn't work.

And then immediately re-set up a new ad with something that I think I've learnt from that.

Yeah.

I think I...

Just because...

That sounds great.

Yeah, just because I know already.

I do want to talk about this in a minute, but I already know that I put money into an ads account that I have every month anyway.

I already decided, probably like when we did that episode about budgeting, that I was going to start just putting money into an account to spend.

So why not spend it?

Yeah.

I mean, I had the same...

I decided that the profit I made off the bookbob, I was going to reinvest it in Amazon ads.

And I say reinvest, what I mean is speculate with Amazon ads.

I need to get a better mindset on it because I am very easily dissuaded from something that I'm not immediately successful at.

And that is a mindset thing.

Yes.

And I think what might help me is to set better objectives.

So I think that is a great idea.

All I have to do is learn one thing this month and then, or this week, whatever it is, and then apply that and improve the ads.

I think in my head, and I'm aware this is not sensible, in my head, I think, I will just be good at it.

It will just go well.

I will just turn it on and it will work.

But that's fine because you need that attitude in order to press go.

And that's a great attitude to have just at the start.

And then at least you're over the hurdle of trying.

I do think, even if it doesn't work out, like yours hasn't worked out, mine hasn't worked out, well, I haven't actually checked yet.

But I'm assuming that it's not generated loads of sales.

At least we showed up and we started.

And I think that is one of the bigger hurdles that a lot of people don't, a lot of people fall at that hurdle.

They don't want to spend the money.

And that brings me to something that I want to talk to you about, which is what your mindset is around money.

Do you know what your money mindset is?

Because when we did the Orna Roth course at the start of the year, pretty much one of the first things that she talked about was writing a letter to yourself about how you feel about money.

And I have mine in front of me.

And I also read an article today, and as much as I didn't think I had this kind of mindset, today I realize I do, which is I have a scarcity mindset.

And that ain't good.

That is interesting, because I would say, what made you think you didn't have that?

Because I think I definitely have experienced a lot of money does just come to you.

So I think this holiday and the holiday I took before this, both times I planned to take the holiday, and it was a holiday of a not insubstantial budget.

I was there, infrequent enough holidays by myself that I thought like, oh, there's no point scripting a saving and feeling meaty about it when I really need to relax or whatever it is.

On both occasions, the money just came to me, not magically, but it was money that was owed to me in some way, but it just in some way seemed to fall out of the sky.

It came at the exact right time saying, money keeps coming to you.

But I think I generally do have scarcity mindset, and I would say most people I know do.

So what made you think you didn't have that to start with and what has made you what you do?

I have never thought that what I was doing was scarcity.

So I, in my whole life, I've always saved money, and I always have had money in my bank account.

I mean, at the moment, it's not a lot of money because cost of living hit me hard and my mortgage doubled.

But I have always just wanted to save money, save money.

And I thought that my kind of, I'm not going to say scrimping, but just like my saving and my being good with money and putting it away, I always thought that that was just me being practical and responsible and like winning in some way that I was saving my money when everybody else was kind of spending theirs frivolously, what I would say was frivolously on holidays because I never used to go on holiday and have only just started going on holiday over the last two years, like actually on a plane.

And it's really only since like I read, like starting this year and doing the Orner Ross course and reading this article that I read today which made me think that me saving money wasn't actually, like rereading the letter that I wrote to myself as well, it wasn't actually because I was like, oh, look at me saving money.

Isn't this great?

Because now I can buy whatever I want.

It was me saving money because I was so scared to not have it.

And I didn't spend what I had.

I had like quite a lot of money saved up before I bought my flat and I spent it all buying the flat.

And that's the only time I have ever cried about like doing something.

And my dad was like so surprised because we were talking about money and how much it was like costing for the down payment and everything.

And I was crying.

I just burst into tears in front of my dad.

And my dad was like, I have never seen you cry.

Like, what's wrong?

And I was like, it's just so much money.

I'm only just really remembering this now that I burst into tears in front of my dad.

I've just been so scared to not have it.

The money that I do save, I'm not even investing or using in a way that's making me happy.

So I never thought that was scarcity, but that is scarcity.

Yes, that's what I've been trying to figure out today, is how much money in my account makes me feel like I'm okay.

That's something that I've been trying to figure out.

Because I'm not on a zero balance every month.

I'm not ever in the red zone.

So that's really something that I'm going to be trying to work on.

Yeah, I think there is no amount of money that would make you feel safe.

Because I think I have the same in other areas of my life.

I really struggle with feeling not accomplished enough.

And I have a lot of accomplishments.

My therapist, Jenny, asked me, she's like, what would make you, genuinely, what would make you feel like you're accomplished enough?

And I was like, maybe a Nobel Prize?

I was like, that's a stupid answer.

But that's the same way thinking about money.

It's like, you don't question it.

And so someone literally asks the question, what would be enough for you?

And I was like, obviously, I'm not going to, I'm not actually aiming to win a Nobel Prize.

And even if I won a Nobel Prize, I would think there probably wasn't any good competition that year.

And yeah, interestingly, I've never been a saver.

And my brother is a real scrimp and saver.

He's like a, you know, save half a chocolate bar.

And he would save all his pocket money and really lord it.

He didn't even lord it over me.

I felt lord it over because I'm a fritterer.

That's me.

Yeah, but I enjoy it.

And I think I have, I'm really struck at the moment because I'm going what I feel like is the wrong way.

So I previously, like I took a sabbatical from my job for nine months and I spent pretty much every penny I had.

Like I had non-intentionally saved because I was living in Hong Kong, it's quite well paid there and very, very low tax.

So I didn't sort of not particularly intentionally save for a bit.

And then I realized I was adding up money.

I was like, oh, I could save quite intentionally for a while and have enough relatively easily to take a sabbatical.

And I did that and I spent down to my last penny.

And I knew I had a job to go back to though.

So I felt like it was fine.

I'll go back to that other job.

And like had that job fallen through, it probably would have been fine.

Like I think I would have found something else.

And like I bought my house pretty much by accident.

Like I've never really wanted to own a house, but I had to move back home to literally my parents during the pandemic, because I have an autoimmune condition.

It didn't feel like I could be outside.

And then obviously they wouldn't like take any rent or money for food.

And I was still earning money.

So I was like, well, lots of people would really, really love the opportunity to own a house.

And renting is actually quite a pain in the UK.

So I should just spend this money on a deposit and bought a house.

And yeah, I have always experienced it.

I have always spent my money quite freely.

And I'm very much a, you might be dead tomorrow, eat the chocolate, spend the money kind of person.

But I do feel like moving back to the UK, I don't know if it's just because of the general social environment.

Obviously cost of living is a big issue at the moment.

It makes me feel much more cautious about it.

But I graduated, as I do, like just before the global financial crisis.

And I had a job, a good job, a good job that I got at university because of a combination of particular skills that I have that was like a new job for me to get.

And it was a secure job, but I hated it.

And I was in a choir with a lot of older ladies, and I was on holiday with them, on a choir trip with them.

And I was saying like, oh, I'm just gonna quit my job, actually.

I really hate it.

And they were like, what are you gonna do next?

I'll figure something out.

And they could not believe it.

They really felt like it was not a sound decision to make.

And I get it.

And I've made the not sound decision over and over and over again in my life.

I am not a person who is out here making sound financial decisions.

And it has only ever gone well.

There is no situation where I have...

And things like I got diagnosed with an autoimmune condition in a country without a particularly good initial health service.

It's fine, but it's slow, and it's not as easy to access the UKs.

So I had to pay out of pocket for medication.

And at the exact same time when I needed it, I got a freelance job that paid me all the money I needed for that.

Just like I have only ever experienced abundance, but I feel like I feel scared.

I feel like I made a decision that I wanted to try and quit my job by a certain milestone.

And it's getting closer and I absolutely feel I can't do it.

Like I feel petrified.

And part of that is because I've got unavoidable expenses, like a house and bills.

And the entire environment around me is talking about like inflation and heating bills.

And you can't afford this and you shouldn't give up a job.

And it's just like, I think it's very easy to have a scarcity mindset when you are, yeah, like I would say most people actually, most people seem to have a scarcity mindset.

I think it's hard to not have that.

Yeah, it is difficult.

It's funny, like you were just saying about not really worrying about, like I'm gonna quit my job, I'm gonna go and do something else.

I don't have fears around other elements in my life.

I'm the same, like I remember somebody saying to me at my old job years ago, I'd been there for about 10 years, and they said to me, you're a lifer, like we'll be working here for the rest of our lives.

And I turned around and said to them, I know, like the biggest insult, I'm still friends with it, can you believe it?

And I turned around and said to her, that's not me.

And then like six months later, I was out the door.

I said, right, I'm finding another job.

And I went and found another job, which is like, I love working where I work.

I really landed on my feet.

And I never even worried about it.

I was just like, I'm gonna find another job, found a perfect job.

And even now, think if I had to leave my job, even though I love it, like it is like an amazing job.

I wouldn't care if I lost my job.

I don't like that doesn't worry me because I would work anywhere.

Like, I don't care where my money comes from.

I just care about where it goes.

I think the problem I have at the moment is, and I think there's benefits to my day job.

We'll talk about this in one episode coming up soon about the things you have for your day job.

And I do really, really try to be incredibly mindful of the fact that like I have learned an enormous amount of skills.

And there was no more skills that I use in myself publishing business.

And I don't think I could have a better job.

I think this is the issue.

I don't think I have a better job for, you know, the way that I like to work, like I have a lot of independence at work.

I work in a few projects.

I do just feel like I want to have the same amount of money that I get from work, but without working.

Because I, from my habits and my job is quite well paid and I am quite comfortable.

I get to do things like, if I see a book, I can buy it.

I don't have infinite riches, but I also don't have a very expensive taste in life.

So I really love and value the ability to want to buy a book and to buy it.

I have been through periods of my life where I absolutely couldn't do that, where I had to, you know, put it on a list to think about later, or just wish I could have it.

Whereas now I, you know, and these like fairly cheap eBooks that I'm buying, but it feels really, really nice to be able to do that.

And to be able to book this holiday, knowing that like, even if money hadn't come in, I could have spread the cost over a couple of months.

Like it was, it's not a, it's not a once in a lifetime dream to be able to take a lovely holiday.

And I like that.

And I've been in situations where that wasn't possible at all.

And I know how much it's stressful to not know where or to have to count money.

And I like that I'm now in a job where my tastes basically mean that I don't, like my relatively cheap taste, means that I don't have to count pennies.

I can't be eating caviar for dinner every night, or like I can eat what I want to eat for dinner every night, which is fine because I don't have very expensive days.

But I don't have to worry about it.

And I am aware that that is an incredibly privileged position.

And that I would really struggle to give that up for uncertainty.

As much as I would like to be able to write full time, I don't want to be worrying about money full time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think that that's one of the sad realities of going full time as an author, that we're going to have to definitely face at some point, which is the unreliable income source.

And having one month where you don't make a lot and maybe having another month where you make loads, but being okay with that is something that I really need to...

That is like a huge...

And I think maybe something that is slowing me down in my pursuit of the career is that part of that uncertainty, that potential...

Well, it's just scary, because like you say, I make enough money for the life that I have now.

I can buy books whenever I want them.

It's embarrassing really that I'm so scared of spending money when there are so many people, even where I live, which is quite an affluent area, but there are still so many people around here who struggle still to put food on the table.

And yet, I'm scared of spending like a hundred quid on something for like buying some book stuff for a business that I've chosen to run.

Like, it just seems like such a stupid thing to be so fearful of, but it's so deeply ingrained.

And I don't know where from.

I don't know where this comes from, and it's something that I'm really starting to try and dig into.

I'd like to try and figure out where this fear is stored within me, and can I get away from it?

Can I shed that part of myself?

Because I need to.

Because I'm going to have to be so much braver about it.

Yeah, because I think if you were full time and you had lean months, I think at the moment you'd really struggle to take money out of savings.

And then what would you do?

Then you would have savings, but feel stressed if you didn't have savings.

And that I think is really tricky to do.

Yeah, I think, but I think it's worthwhile being just even not necessarily having to fix your mindset, right, just being really aware of your mindset and knowing what you'd have to set up in order to go full time.

And for me, I would have to set up, you know, maybe enough baseline freelancing work to have some reliability coming in that I wouldn't have to, because I know that I, if I didn't have money coming in, I would fret.

I've been in that position before.

I would, even though I know that, like, for me, I have consistently had money just appear.

Not, you know, not magically, but like money comes to you if you need it.

Not even if you need it, it just comes, right?

There's money in the world, and you could always get another job or make more money or, you know, be offered an indecent proposal for a million pounds, spend a night with some billionaire.

Who knows?

These things happen.

I'm not, I'm not not gonna do it.

I think having lived in Hong Kong, it's a really good environment to just see that lots of people have got very, very different amounts of money for no very good reason.

And you, I think being waged and being like middle class waged really sticks you in a certain mindset.

And like, there's very little that I would have to, there's very little obstacle in the way of me having significantly more money.

Right?

There's like, I have a business which has now quite a lot of assets.

If I just figured out a better way to utilize those assets, I will be able to bring money in.

But I am sat here with a salary mindset of like, I need this amount of money coming in every month.

And I really think I need to work on that.

So it's interesting, like, I listened to the previous episode we had about money mindset.

And that was actually much sunnier.

If I want to come back to this conversation, it was much more like, I'm going to make myself a business loan and figure out the pots I'm going to put money into, and then I'm going to spend this money.

And I think it is very useful, hopefully, for listeners to kind of see that these things aren't like one directional.

I think we had a simpler way of looking at the problem before.

And now I think we, a bit like I was talking about previously, like all my mindset things are just like, everything is actually a layer deeper and a layer deeper and a layer deeper.

That it is not just make yourself a business loan, put together pots of money for different things.

It's actually like thinking about it as a business as a whole.

And how do I do that?

And how do I do that in a way that works with my personal background, my mindset issues and my attitude towards money?

And how do I, because I just didn't act like I made those plans, I just didn't act because it just didn't fit with who I am and the way that I work.

And so I need to find a way to like, what is my money path, mindset, journey, like all those things, like how am I going to make this money work?

And yeah, how, like maybe, I think reframing it for me as speculating has really helped.

So Becca Syme's kind of idea of speculating when they're investing.

I think a lot of people in self-publishing, they are more entrepreneurial.

And so the louder voices that are very entrepreneurial, they act as though, and this is not criticism because it works for them, they talk and act as though like that is the way to do things.

Like, of course, just take this risk with the money and like just do these things.

It's like that, I'm never going to do that.

So there's no point me pretending I'm going to do that because it's just not the way that I think or feel.

So I need to figure out like what are the next business steps that make sense for me on a financial basis?

Yeah, I guess like what, how do you envision running your business?

I think that's something that I really need to think about.

Like what are the things I want to spend money on?

What are the processes that I want to do?

What are the marketing things that I want to do?

And then how much do I think they're going to cost?

And when am I going to do them?

I think you're right in that you start thinking about the whole business thing, and it's so mind-bending.

And you see what everyone else is doing, and you think, oh, I guess I'm supposed to be doing that.

But it really muddies the water.

And the only thing that really is important is what feels the most natural to you.

And can you move in that direction somehow?

Yeah, there are a lot of very laugh voices that are like those seven bigger authors who have multiple people on staff who are spending a fortune on ads, who are all and all there releasing every couple of weeks.

And it's like, there's no point me borrowing a bit of their business model, because I'm not going to use the rest of it.

So I think I've just not contemplated enough, like, yeah, what are the things that I enjoy?

What's my business model?

How am I going to make this work?

How much, like, what's my output going to be?

How much money do I need to make out of those things?

And how would I do that?

Because there are some people making money out of one book a year.

There are some people making money out of 24 books a year.

There are some people leveraging ads heavily, but also needing a lot of staff to do that.

And I think I'm just trying to borrow bits and pieces from every single one of them.

I'm getting nowhere.

I am on a different hamster wheel to the one I was on at the beginning of the year, or like before I stopped writing for a while.

And I'm now on like the business hamster wheel, and I don't like it.

No, I don't.

It doesn't feel natural to be thinking of the things I'm thinking about.

I have just started reading the Rights to Riches book by Renee Rose.

And that is just because I really needed to...

I had it on my bookshelf anyway, and I really needed to start thinking about like changing my mindset, but also just I think trying to open myself up to the idea that I can run my business how I want to run it.

Because we've been talking this week about...

We've got like our own Pinterest manifestation boards that we started and trying to envision our future lives.

And it's just that that's such a fun creative thing to do that makes you feel good.

I think it's like a really nice place to like swim around in this pool of excitement and dreams.

I want to do that for the business.

That's what I want to...

How I want to feel about thinking about my business is like looking at all the possibilities and the fun things that I could do that aren't...

But yeah, there's going to be some difficult stuff, but surely the stuff that I do, I have to enjoy.

And I think...

I can't remember where I heard it recently, but there was something I was listening to where it really resonated with me.

They were just talking about like, choose the marketing things or choose the business things that you like doing.

Because if they're successful, you have to keep doing them.

But like, choose what you like and then leave the rest.

And I think that is key.

And I think I don't quite know yet how to do that.

So we've looked at like some people we've looked at, like we've looked at different authors who were doing things really differently.

And it does feel like the ones who are most successful have picked things that they clearly love.

Yes.

Yeah.

And if that's social media, that's social media.

But like for me, I don't love social media.

And so if I do it, I'm just not going to be authentic, and I will drop in and out, and it won't be as fun.

But like, I really like writing my newsletter, and I really like creating bonus content for it.

And I was doing that this week, and it felt really nice.

And obviously, all the tech issues around it were a real pain.

But actually, if I stop spending myself so thin with other things, I could spend more time with newsletters.

I am going to do that this year.

I'm going to go to a weekly newsletter rather than monthly, because I think I'm good at writing newsletters, and I think I enjoy it, and I think I provide content that brings me an authentic connection with people.

So I am going to try and up that.

One other thing I just want to mention, kind of linked to that, is that time is a resource.

I think when we look at money, we look at it as if it's our main resource.

And I know this is a really overstated thing, but time is a resource.

I spent all this morning beating my head against the wall of tech issues.

I could have spent that time freelancing, and I have a quite lucrative freelancing clients, that I could have spent time on this tech issue, making a good chunk of money.

And I didn't, and that's a choice I made.

That's a choice I made to invest that time in my business.

And I think I'm not careful enough about how I do that, that like, do I want to intentionally invest time away from things that I don't want to do, or in things that I think I have to do.

I'm just, I'm ping ponging all the time.

I'm like jumping from pillar to post, not intentional.

And it's the same with money, not intentional.

I'm not intentional with my time, with the way I'm spending and through an energy.

Yeah, I'm aware this is like a really negative episode.

I actually don't feel wildly negative about things.

I think I feel like I am coming through a lot of things, like mindset of like not.

Not doing what everyone else does because they do it, or not trying to be on a hamster wheel.

Like I want to figure out what I want to do.

And I'm done feeling bad about not having certain skills and not being in certain places.

And I'm ready to like really think about what I'm doing on purpose.

That's a really good breakthrough for you because you generally hate like doing anything that you don't think you're going to be good at.

And yeah, I think it's great for you to think like, I'm okay with not being okay right now.

I'm like, I'm okay with trying to figure it out.

I think that's a really good place to be in.

It's just like being okay with that you are figuring it out and you are going to make mistakes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think I don't want to be able to make my own journey, like my own path rather than like I kept trying to find the right, quote unquote, right path.

So it does feel like right now, I think my big mindset shift is in feeling like better about choosing my own way to go about things.

And that being valid.

I am to like pull it back from being so negative, because I don't feel negatively about this.

I think this is just like such a big realisation.

I have done some good stuff.

Like this week, I finally set up my Money Hub app, which I downloaded months and months ago, and then got too scared to connect all my accounts to it, because I was like, but I don't actually want to look at my money.

I don't want to look at my accounts.

And I finally connected everything.

I think Money Hub has changed their free plan, so I think you won't get a connection very long, because I'm no longer using Money Hub.

Oh really?

That's fine.

Yeah, there's so many apps I know.

I actually do work in the financial industry, so I know a lot of the apps.

So I'm fine with having to switch apps, and I know a lot of them.

But I finally walked over that bridge of just being like, you know, I'm going to look at it.

I'm going to look at these numbers, and I'm going to be okay with what I see.

And this is a big hurdle for me.

I'm sure this is one of my posters that I've got for my Q2 goals.

It was actually probably Q1 goals.

And the fact that I have started looking at my money makes me not so scared to take a little bit away and say, I'm going to spend this doing these few things that I want to do.

Like, I know I've got to pay for one of my book covers this month.

And I know that there's a particular marketing thing that I want to do, which is going to cost me maybe like a hundred or so.

And I don't feel so bad about that anymore.

I don't feel too bad thinking that I'm going to be spending, like that I can like direct the money.

I think that's what it is.

I think it's just like, I feel better knowing that the money is going to something that I have already decided on.

So I do feel positive.

This feels like a week, not quite like epiphanies, but like heavy realizations.

Oh yeah, very heavy realizations.

We need a different necklace for that.

Heavy realizations.

Yeah, we need a heavy realization necklace.

Yeah, I think it's always difficult to talk about budgeting in general, because like, what is budgeting?

It's just the worst thing in the world.

But to anybody talking about finance and your own personal finance situation and your attachment style to money, it's so personal, and a lot of people don't want to have this conversation.

They don't want to have the conversation with themselves, let alone like a co-worker, and however many people are going to listen to this podcast.

It's a very difficult conversation to have, because we've brought up in this country in particular to never talk about money.

Don't tell anybody how much you're earning, don't tell anybody how much your house costs, how much your car costs, keep that to yourself.

And I don't like that.

I found it so tough.

When I went over to Hong Kong, the first question anyone ever asked you about your flat is like, how much it cost?

And I was like, that is private information, that is personal information.

But then I got really into it.

Everyone asked, how much it cost?

It's very liberating.

I think the reason why you don't want to tell people is because it's a very clear indicator of how much you earn, which we see as a metric of how much you're worth.

Those two things are not connected at all.

So yeah, it did feel quite freeing to be able to ask people that.

I like it.

Yeah, I do as well.

I actually really want to ask all of my friends how much they earn.

Because I definitely am the least, definitely.

But it's just, I just want to know.

When we talked about money face to face, and we were just really open about numbers, and I would say that is a great thing to do with a mastermind partner, to really just say, this is how much I earn, this is how much I spend on my books, how much I make on my books, these are my incomeings and outgoings each month.

In fact, I would say next time we sit down, now we've kind of had like six months-ish of talking about different topics, it would be great for us to sit down and look again at numbers and just say, really practically.

Because it's more of a conversation with yourself than really with somebody else.

It's not allowing you to skirt things that you don't want to think about.

Because I think I made a plan about six months ago that I wanted to save more money, and I've absolutely not done it.

So why, and what am I doing, and what am I thinking with that not saving money?

So yeah, I think that's how I'm going to sit down and chat with it.

And I would strongly recommend anyone with a mass sign partner to be really open about money.

Like there is no downside to it, I would say.

And I think if you go into it, like knowing it's absolutely no reflection on someone's status, it is just like, here's where I am.

Here's what I do with it.

What should we do with that next?

What should I change?

With a great conversation.

So yes, let's do that again face to face.

I feel unburdened having had this conversation because I think I felt really anxious to run up to it.

I feel like I've made no changes since we last talked about this.

And actually I have.

I have made some changes.

And to an extent, like not making the changes and evaluating why you haven't done that is just as important if I've made them.

So it has been a helpful conversation kind of mindset wise and literally in terms of money.

I think my next steps I'm going to do is I am going to work on my Amazon ad in a more businessy way.

And like really just focus down on that.

I think I'm just trying to like hamster wheel 10,000 things.

I put so many things on my Q2 things to do.

Absolutely unreasonable number of things I couldn't possibly do properly.

I'm going to just do this one thing.

I'm going to just do Amazon ads and spend money on it.

I'm going to speculate with my Amazon ads.

And I'm going to set myself a budget of money that I am happy spending to learn something.

And I'm going to follow your lead and try and actually learn something from them with very clear goals and processes.

So I'm going to do that.

You got kind of a sound bitey thing that you're going to do regarding money.

Yes, I'm going to keep spending this money that I've set aside for Facebook ads and actually have an ongoing ad campaign, which I'm going to look at every month and decide whether I'm going to keep that one running or if I can learn from it and maybe set up another one.

Because I already know that money is off the table.

It's out of my account.

I'm happy with that.

I do also have a marketing thing that I want to do, which is to...

I've said this before, and this has been on my Q2 goals for, well, the whole of the quarter, is to reach out to book reviewers, and I want to send them paperback copies of my...

an option of two of my backlist and say, can I just send you this paperback?

So I'm going to buy a box of some paperbacks of my own and then start reaching out to people and saying, do you want to paperback?

And see how that goes, and invest in that, because that to me is a really fun little venture that I can be doing on the side.

And you could spend that money on Facebook in a matter of hours on ads to no definable outcome, or no disabled outcome.

It would be great to at least say, I have ordered books, I have posted books out.

Here are my results.

They either are this or they aren't this.

And I can now know what to do going forward.

Yeah, I'm really excited to try it.

Yeah, I look forward to hear about it.

So for next week's episode, we are continuing our series on real life versus writing.

We've got an episode, interestingly, on handling setbacks, which I think is very tied to today, because I think it can sort of feel like a setback to not have made any progress on something.

But definitely I felt like today, the conversation has been like, I didn't make any progress because I was being unrealistic.

And here's why, here's how I'm going to change things from now on.

So hopefully we have got more heavy realities and or, or heavy realizations and or epiphanies next week.

Do you have any thoughts so far on handling setbacks?

I don't have many thoughts ever.

I am genuinely, genuinely, genuinely, generally, oh, my, the words have gone, a very happy and positive mindset person.

And I don't actually tend to view setbacks as negative things.

I'm a try, learn, see, you know, see what's next person.

So I'm excited to kind of talk about that, because I know that you are definitely not that person.

Not that person at all.

But I think I would like to be more of that person, because I think I waste energy.

I think that my issue is I waste energy on the negativity around a setback, whereas, you know, I could just be like, okay, next thing.

And I don't, I think I want to get better at evaluating things around setbacks, rather than just sort of wading around thinking this isn't going well, this isn't going well.

Because even if I could be like, okay, I'm going to get on try something else, I think I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable not learning from something.

So yeah, that's what I'm going to think about over the next week is kind of how to evaluate them.

I say over the next week, I have got six play performances of midsummer actually between now and then.

So how much thinking I will do?

We'll see.

I will at least be full of creative joy.

You will be, you're doing live performances.

What better place to practice setbacks and how to get over them?

Yeah, that is interesting actually, because like the fairies, I mean, Moth, one of the best fairies, I would say.

The fairies, the whole thing is like, you know, mischief and running around, you sort of can't make a mistake.

Yeah, and there's no value to be like, oh gosh, I forgot that there.

Oh, I feel really bad.

And on stage, generally live performances, there's no benefit to that.

So yeah, I will see what I can learn from this coming week.

And I will speak to you next week.

Thank you everybody for joining us.

It has been fantastic.

Please do subscribe, like, tell your friends, tell all your author friends.

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And thank you so much, Sam, for this today.

It's been fantastic conversation.

Thank you.

And thank you everybody for listening.

We shall talk to you later.

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