S01E51: When Debt Doubts are Discussed

Enjoy this banked episode from earlier in 2024, where Samantha and Matilda talked about their money mindset!

Happy New Year to all - tune in next week for the Q4/2024 wrap up, where Sam and Matilda will recap their working years... what a wild ride!

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/3QHym3m

Most recent book: Heart of the Wolf (Moons & Magic Book 2) https://amzn.eu/d/4HecH3a

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/

We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rogers (she also has a podcast called Hello Seven): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BYYMZG3/

Martin Lewis: https://www.moneysavingexpert.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 money.

And it's a standalone episode we're saving for a rainy day.

If you're listening to this, we're ill on holiday or otherwise indisposed.

Instead of whims and whinges of the week, how about something more general?

What are your whims and whinges around money, Sam?

Oh, the dreaded question.

At first, I wasn't sure how to answer this, but then I realized that I did.

And I think I could be quite openly honest, because I know we like talking about money and people like to hear us talk about money.

So recently, I've been reading this book, Right to Riches, and really trying to discover my emotional connection to money and just change my fear around spending, because I am a saver and I thought I was saving because I was scared of not having anything, which to be fair is true, because we're all scared of not having money.

So recently, I would say that the last month, I was kind of just spending money without thinking about anything, without being scared that I was going to run out.

And that was all going well.

And then I looked at my bank account and I had the least money I've ever had, probably in my life, in my bank account.

And that's like being very like, the least money I had in my bank account, but I did have money elsewhere.

Like my boyfriend pays, like I pay all the bills and he gives me money.

So like, I did have a chunk of money just in his bank account.

But it still made me kind of step back like, oh my God, like I have no money left.

And the initial reaction was like fear and worry.

So this is like the whinge part.

But the win part was really just realizing that, like, I didn't not have any money.

It was just like ingoings and outgoings were just kind of a bit skewed.

But it also made me really realize that my saving money, which is what I love doing, I've always been a saver, is actually, I actually really like that.

I just, I like having money in my account.

And I, it is like scary to not have a certain amount.

So I've got like a particular amount in my mind that I just like to have.

And I know that I can dip below that and be fine.

But it's kind of nice that I did this experiment, tried just spending money willy nilly, and then realized, well, but actually I do like saving money.

It does make me feel good.

So a win in a winch, all wrapped up in one.

I do, I just feel a bit more comfortable now with how I spend money and how I've used money in general.

And it was just like a fun experiment, but I'm not going to spend willy nilly again, just for the sake of it.

Yeah, how about you?

I think I've also got a win in a winch, and it is related back to this week.

So it's sort of temporary relevant, but nobody knows when this situation happens.

So imagine it's this week whenever you're listening.

I went to an alpaca farm this week.

And it was just lovely.

And before we went, I was staying with a friend of mine who lives in the Cotswolds.

And before we went, we were both saying, work is just not what we're made for.

We are, you know, just so full of interesting ideas that we could absolutely entertain ourselves never working a day again in our lives.

And if only we could see a job that we would think, oh, I'd really love to do that, then we might feel differently about work.

And we're like, no, I've never seen a job that I thought I'd really enjoy doing.

And then we went to an alpaca farm, and then we're like, this is the job I'd like to do.

So we asked the woman who was running the farm, and she didn't own it, but she knew the owners for a long time.

We asked her like, oh, how do you come to own or run an alpaca farm?

And it was an unbelievably complex story that was not replicable, so not helpful.

But it was interesting to kind of daydream then about if we could open an alpaca farm, what we would do to make money on it.

Yeah, all the different enterprises we could have.

I mean, it would be so good.

I've worked on a farm before, I've worked on a farm for a long time.

Yeah, it would be so good.

And they were just delightful as well.

And so we were just trying to figure out like, where would it be?

What's the realities of it?

How much land would you need?

What else would you have on the land?

And then we got too far into the realities of it.

And we were looking at, or I started Googling, like, cost of land, like how much farmland costs.

And the good thing about packers is, yeah, the good thing about packers is they don't need good land, right?

They need steep, sort of otherwise unusable land.

They love that.

So not super expensive, but I don't know.

It's not like the romantic, let's run away to join the circus sort of lifestyle.

It's quite an expensive option.

And it just, it really made me think, and we both have got money and savings and own houses.

I don't own mine outright, but I own some of it, a little, probably this bit I'm sat in right now, and good salaries.

So in theory, if we really, really wanted to do, we could put together a business plan and do it.

And I felt incredibly unpleasant about that idea, about just having a lot of debt, because I have, apart from my mortgage, no debt.

Like, I paid off my student loan, because it's very easy to do in the UK.

I pay off my credit card all the time.

I don't have a very extravagant lifestyle.

And the idea of taking out a business loan feels horrible.

And sort of opposite to you, I'm not a big intentional saver.

I also don't particularly like saving.

I like saving for a thing.

And I've never really been a good saver.

My brother was a real hoarder of pocket money, and just always had money, and he was always happy to lend it to you, which made it worse, because I'd always spent mine on something.

And, but I quite like sort of, it makes me feel quite free, not having to think about money that much.

So I like having a good enough paid job that I can not, and I don't have very expensive tastes.

So I live with my means quite easily.

So it was really interesting this weekend to face this sort of realisation that I don't even like the idea of necessarily having a large amount of debt, even if it were towards the goal of having a big, definitely successful business, because obviously how can that pack of farm fail?

So, yeah, it was interesting to think about.

Yeah, this idea of debt is, we're all raised to believe, and I'm the same, like, and I'm like, I don't have debt, apart from my mortgage.

I have a credit card for the sake of credit score, that, you know, like that stupid adult thing.

And I pay off, I pay Netflix.

That's it, pay off every month.

But we kind of raised this idea that like debt's bad.

And, but sometimes debt is just a well planned out spend.

Sometimes it just means that you can do something and you could, and like spreading the cost is the most financial responsible thing you can do.

But it doesn't feel that way.

I asked somebody who like heavily researches how to open a farm and how to buy land and stick a house on it.

Like that's like one of my side quests in life.

And I've talked to people about this, like seriously had meetings with people about it.

Like I'm in.

It's such a scary concept.

Every single time I step back because of that thing of like, you'd have to get this loan, you'd have to get, you'd have to borrow all this money and do all this stuff.

It's so scary.

It's so, so scary.

Which does bring us on to today's topic, which is money.

And the fact that we both share this long term goal to write for a living, but that is a huge change from having a salary provided to you from somebody else.

So how are you planning to write for a living financially?

Like how does that make you feel?

What are your plans and goals?

Yeah, it feels horrible, which sounds crazy.

But I, yeah, this, this like example of the farm is really good.

A concrete example of just the fact that I am not, not used to not being in control of my money.

So I spent a lot of my life not working like intentionally and not traveling.

And I feel really glad about that, because I think a lot of people save their traveling for when they're old, but I have got a degenerative strength condition.

I won't be able to be doing all the fun, reckless, you know, hiking through rainforests and diving off cliffs and things that I did when I was young.

And I loved it.

And I really enjoyed those experiences, but it meant that I haven't got a big, you know, chunk of money behind me.

I own very little of my house.

I bought my house a couple of years ago, but, you know, I can afford to own a house by myself.

So it's definitely a very privileged position, but it just means that I have just had a very light touch with money my whole life.

But I come from people who have felt very glad to have a good salary.

That is a very positive thing.

And they are not the sort of people who, you know, would ever own a business.

You know, I've got maybe, distant cousins of my dads have owned like a little hair salon, but like a little neighborhood hair salon where, you know, you can make the money.

Excuse me.

That's maybe it.

And like, you know, my ancestors, above my grandparents were farmers.

So subsistence farmers, though, you know, not people who were speculating.

And so yeah, the idea of speculating feels like gambling to me.

It does not feel comfortable at all.

So one thing that I'm, so I'm trying to do a lot of things to prepare for it.

But a big thing that I'm maybe realizing I've not done enough of is working on mindset.

And it definitely, it definitely is a thing that I've been paying attention to or maybe just noticing more, is that a lot of people that I know who are full-time authors, not everybody, but a lot of people that I know that I maybe have met over the last couple of years, they come from previous entrepreneurial backgrounds.

And in a lot of situations, they also have a spouse financially supporting them.

So for them, A, they're more used to the risk, and B, it is less of a risk.

And it's very, very hard to conceive of giving up a good salary to have with no safety net.

I don't have anyone else paying my bills.

And it's not zero safety net, right?

Absolutely not zero safety net.

I have a great educational background.

I have parents who would take me in.

But it would feel like a failure if I didn't, if I had to go quote unquote backwards.

But I could just say that is a risk I'm happy to take.

Like, why not?

I don't have kids.

I don't have any requirement to have money.

I could figure something out.

So I just really need to do a lot of mind set in terms of how can I feel more comfortable with that risk?

Knowing that to me, the risk has very little consequence.

I'm not talking about taking willy-nilly risks.

I'm talking about taking risks where the reward would be enormous and the downside is maybe feeling a bit humiliated.

I can't live my life based on that.

So that's something I haven't done enough of.

I've done a few things, but I think that's an area where I want to do more.

Have you done anything in terms of mind set?

I know you said you're reading Right to Riches.

I'm reading Right to Riches.

Yeah, and it's taking me a while to get through it because I'm kind of in a slow reading mood at the moment.

I feel like that's helping me kind of absorb things and put things into practice.

But it's funny that you're mentioning about like family history when it comes to money and not having people really make like business people in your family because I mean, yeah, I just really like looking at family, like family structures and stuff.

My granddad and my dad both owned their own businesses, so they both run their own businesses.

And so I grew up with people who did do that.

And yet, and I even took business studies in school for A level.

Like I did all the stuff.

I know it's weird, isn't it?

It's so weird.

I did business studies and art.

It's not that common at A level when we were kids.

So that's like a real dedication to running for your business.

So I did business studies and like my business studies teachers all thought I would do so well, but I'm terrible at exams.

So I did great in all the coursework, but failed all the exams.

But like I understood the concept of it.

But I think what's really strange, it's not strange, but what is strange is that I've got friends who have set up businesses and like are doing all sorts of things.

I've got a friend who opened a shop, an actual shop and has just like progressed from this small shop to a bigger shop.

And that's really no different to what we're doing, but we just don't have a shop space.

But it feels like a completely different venture.

But it's not.

So my friend, I'm assuming to set up her business, went to the bank with a business plan, never actually asked her, but I'm assuming that's what she did, and got a loan to set up the shop.

And that's like a huge risk, but she did it.

And I suppose because you can see what she's selling and you can see, like what her business costs are, and it's all up front and very like tangible.

There's like no shame or like any weirdness in seeing somebody do that.

You think, oh, that's amazing.

She set up a business.

But if I went to the, if I told people that I went to the bank for a loan, to set up like a publishing business, which I think would be incredibly difficult because I don't know how like whether banks give out loans for that.

I've never looked into it.

But I feel like that would be A, very difficult.

And B, I think people would think that I was insane.

I don't I think people would think that that's a weird thing to do.

But it is a business.

And yeah, I don't like the fact that there's no set plan.

If we were opening a shop, there would be a set plan of every step you have to take.

And I feel like there's not really that kind of thing to that.

There's no set path to follow.

That's that really not freaks me out.

But it kind of makes me feel very hesitant to, I don't know, to really look at it directly, even though obviously that's the thing that I'm doing.

Yeah, it sort of looks like a shop on the surface of like, we have a thing to sell.

But it's a thing that you have to make yourself.

Maybe it's closer to a cake shop, but people need cake.

And it's not like a human right need, but as in people can be quite easily tempted into eating cake.

As long as it's not terrible, you know, you can co-order the market in cheap cakes or, you know, because you're only serving your physical geographical area.

So we have to serve the entire world with cake, but there are also a million other cake sellers in the same like whole world market.

And some of them have got cheap cakes and some of them have got beautiful cakes, and some of them have got delicious cakes, and you're there being like, I've got cake.

And this is, you know, kind of brings together what we talked about before is, is like branding and, you know, making sure that you know your customers and you reach out to them really well.

But it is really tricky to try and compare it to other sorts of businesses because you both make the product and sell the product.

And there's a bit like a million other people trying to sell the same thing.

And you, it's a product that you made and that comes from like your heart and you have to feel confident about it and some days you don't feel confident about it.

So then how do you go up there and market a product that you today just suddenly seem like the worst thing you've ever read in your life.

You're like, never mind, I'll just hide in my bed.

Yeah.

But you can't tell the bank, like some days I'll hide in my bed.

That's part of my business plan.

Yeah.

Some days I'm not going to want to talk to you and I'm going to pretend like this business doesn't exist.

Yeah.

It's very peculiar, like such a strange mindset to get around.

But reading this book, Write to Riches is helping a lot because it does make me feel a lot braver.

There was like throughout the book, there are all these examples of other authors who like their stories from literally making no money, to all of a sudden making a lot of money, and it just happening.

And I think that potentially like I'm kind of waiting for that.

It feels like a lottery win, but at the same time, it's not.

So it feels like making a living as a writer, it feels like literally like one in a million.

Because that's what everyone says, like it's so hard to make it.

But it's not, I don't think it is one in a million, and I don't think it is like winning the lottery.

Like a huge part of my brain and like I'm trying to train myself into thinking of this like more and more is like, you just got to keep working at it.

And at some point, that day will come where all of a sudden, you've made double what you made the month before.

And then the next month, you'll make double.

And I'm just waiting for that, that tipping point.

But until I get there, I feel like, like I just don't know.

I can't imagine like being full time.

Even though like I can at the same time, it's such a strange place to be, because it's really like being in no man's land.

It's like anything could happen.

Yeah.

I also think there's so much variability in it, is that it's very hard to picture yourself.

So like, are you picturing yourself as someone who basically, and I think I am a picture myself as someone who basically makes the same salary as I make now, and has like an even amount of money coming every month that equals roughly what I'm making now, which is ludicrous.

Absolutely not in relation to reality.

No, that's my bottom-wrong dream.

But then I think the reality is some months you make next to nothing, and some months you might make six figures.

I'm sure there are authors out there doing that.

To me, it feels very hard to picture that because I've never had that situation.

So in my mind, I'm sort of trying to imagine, when I think of full-time, I think of a steady amount of money, because I think I haven't also confronted the uncertainty that will come with not having that, that will come.

And I don't really know how I would, and this is why I was thinking to do more mindset work, is I don't know how I would cope with a steady decline.

That I think would just be very difficult.

I used to really want to be full-time.

And then I had an absolute u-turn on it when it was the pandemic and I couldn't write.

And I was like, you know what, that was a foolish idea.

Why did I want to go full-time?

My job is such a lifeline.

I absolutely would never give it up.

And that was a real fear response.

And I have come around from that.

And it doesn't feel sensible to have come back to saying I'm gonna full-time, but it feels like how I want to live my life.

But I do think, I'm someone who has somewhat precarious health.

So, and anything can go wrong for anybody.

If I'm more compassionate way, you can be another pandemic.

I live in a flood area.

My house could flood at any moment.

Anything could happen.

And I just, I need to find a better way to deal with the uncertainty of the finance of a self, even just self-employment, really.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I think this kind of is a good time to talk about the like how you are definitely in a more precarious position than I am.

Although because you are a single person living alone and you're paying all the bills on your own, I do have a partner.

And even though I make more money than he makes right now, it is a little bit more of a safety net for me because I think, well, if it didn't work out and I had to get another job, I would still have some help there.

So that's kind of nice to have.

And I know for you, that's not the case.

But at the same time, when I'm making millions, I will throw some of your way when you need it.

I can help you pay your mortgage.

Yeah.

At the same time, we come to a position where at the moment I am more than you and I'm trying to really put it into savings.

So I think it is interesting that we have two sort of different, but similarly precarious positions where I am aiming towards leaving my job with over a year's worth of financial requirements in the bank and I have to do that because I don't have any cut.

Whereas you might not be in a position to make that much in savings, but if things go wrong, somebody else is able to pay a mortgage at least for a couple of months.

Yes.

Yeah.

So those are the two different approaches.

Yeah.

And then I think in terms of other things I have been doing.

So, you know, I've got my chore charts.

I love my chore charts.

So one of my weekly chores is absolutely saving my life.

One of my weekly chores is to do something to do in a finance focus.

And I've made myself a list of things that will be helpful to do financially.

Or not to redo, but as a think about in a financial related topic.

So one of them has been literally sit down and work out what's the cost of getting a book made.

So in terms of what's the average editing price for me and what's a cover price.

And just having those written down means I can factor it into my year plan for how much I will be spending on books in future.

So if I'm wanting to be full time, I want to have full books out a year, I know how much they cost.

So that is also added into my how much money I need per year.

Another task that I haven't done yet, because it's really big and going to be awful, but it's on my list, I'm going to get done, is to work out all the costs of the affiliated publishing things, such as the cost of my website, the cost of MailerLite, the cost of BookFunnel.

And again, just to have those all in a list, and I'm not even necessarily saying I'll get rid of any of them.

I just want to have them in a list so I know.

When I'm thinking about how much my annual costs are, that is factored in.

And then one that I have done, but I want to go back and redo.

And if I find it useful to do it first of all, so it's the very first task I did was to write down all my expenses.

And I've made this sort of thing before, and then tried to live to that level just to get a sense of, is it realistic?

And absolutely crashed and burned.

So I've tried this time to make myself a list of all my expenses, but keeping it realistic.

So things like your grass electric bills, new internet bills and things, but also I've kept in there the cost of my haircuts.

I have short hair and I get my hair cut every six weeks.

And I don't realistically want to plan to have to grow my hair out because I've decided to go full time.

I could, I grew out in the pandemic.

I did not hate it.

I had incredibly long hair.

I've had hair all the way down, but it would be on my waist.

So I could grow it out, but I don't want that to be part of the active plan.

Similarly, I've also put in getting my nails done.

It's the only like beautifying thing that I do on a regular basis.

I get my nails done once a month.

It is very useful to have care for me.

You sit there for an hour, you can't do anything.

And then every day I probably look at my hands dozens of times a day and think, oh, I'm so glamorous, because I always have like pillar box red nails, and I feel made up at all times.

So that is in my list of expenses.

One thing that I think I've been really bad at factoring in, so I've been really good at factoring in things that I think are recurring and predictable.

I haven't factored in enough unpredictable things.

So for example, I went to go and visit a friend this weekend, and the trains were an absolute nightmare.

Every, I only had to catch four trains to get there and back.

Two of them were outright canceled, and two of them kicked everyone off partway and had to put everyone on a new train with a delay.

I don't know what's going on with the trains right now.

I mean, there was a big storm this weekend, so I'll give them a bit of a leeway, but there was a big storm, knocked trees down everywhere.

And I live on a very, a single track, very long line, where if anything happens in a long line, the whole line is broken, which fine.

It's an expense.

Like it's just a, that is a risk I take.

I don't run a car.

If you have a car, sometimes you wing mirror breaks.

If you live on public transport, sometimes the train get canceled.

So I had to get a cab because I just thought, I'm not giving up my whole weekend and I'm not adding a two and a half hour public transport journey just to the next train.

So I'll get a cab.

And it was annoyingly expensive, but within an amount of money that I think is reasonable for what it was.

But I haven't factored that sort of thing in.

And also I had something arrived today that is a gift for somebody that I had ordered a few weeks ago.

That isn't for anything.

It's just a gift that I saw it and I thought of her.

And I've got friends at Simboli buy me gifts and they really keep my spirit high.

So I don't want to decide that I'm factoring in.

I'm going to become a real mean person when I go full time.

I want to be factoring those expenses in.

I'm not currently.

So having made my essential money list a couple of months ago, it has been very helpful to keep that in mind and pay attention to extra costs that come in.

So just holidays.

So this Christmas we're going to go to Spain.

And in fact, I love, love, love Christmas.

I'm already thinking about it.

I put some Christmas music on today.

Again, whenever you're listening, it's, I could have listened to Christmas music today.

Whatever time of year you're listening, it might have been today.

It's summer.

It's still summer.

It is summer.

It could be anytime, because every time is Christmas in my head.

Yeah.

So, but I don't, once again, I get a real tree, not, not wild expensive in the UK, but I get a real tree.

I have a lot of Christmas party.

I'm going to fly out to Spain.

I like to get nice gifts.

These things are not, they're not cheap, but they're not, they're not things I consider to be an extravagance.

They're not wild expensive.

Normally in my like regular salaried life, I don't come out, I don't save up for them.

They are small enough that they go in and out with my regular expenses.

But I currently don't have them factored in to my annual expenses.

So I think I need to go back and look at what is the real annual amount that I think I need and how am I going to get there.

Have you done a similar looking at your cost?

This is an ongoing thing for me of saying that I'm going to do that and then not wanting to look at my bank account.

But I have been a lot better.

I have done a lot better with it recently.

I'm not as scared as looking at my bank account as I used to be.

I am the same as you.

I mean, the thing is, for both of us, we don't have children.

We have fur babies, if I'm going to throw that term in there, I hate it.

I hate it a lot.

We have animal children.

I think I'm more of an animal aunt.

I've got animal nieces.

I'm 100% my dog's mother.

I might as well be a aunt.

I'm like a cool aunt.

I'm a cool mom.

So we do have expenses like that, but we're not raising kids and buying school uniforms and stuff.

So I can't make myself feel bad for the small expenses that I have.

Like, I love taking myself out for a coffee on a Saturday morning and sitting outside of my local coffee shop and just people watching.

And I would be devastated if that was something that I felt like I couldn't afford to do.

Because it's like a favourite.

Yeah, like things like that.

I will never feel bad for the very small expenses I have.

Neither of us are party animals.

I mean, and you do a lot of stuff, but we're not like in our 20s.

It's like very, very cheap.

So I go roller skating.

I go roller skating once a week.

I factored that cost in, it's five pounds a week.

Great.

I can afford that.

Yeah, like we're not like in our 20s and still spending so much money going out drinking with people.

So like, as far as like expenses really go, I think we're both like, pretty average.

And maybe we could save a bit more, but also for what, like for what?

There is a cost of living crisis.

I think this is probably the only time in my life where I've actually felt the pinch of reality when it comes to money.

So I've never been paid a lot for any job that I've been in because I've always just done office work and office work, like when you're not specialized in anything, like I'm just an admin person.

And whilst I'm very good at admin for other people, not myself, I've never made more than enough money.

I've always just made enough money to kind of have the life that I've got.

And before the cost of living crisis and like COVID and everything, I was making just enough money that I was saving regularly, like I had a lot in my bank account.

My mortgage was very low and it was great.

And I felt like I felt very comfortable with what I was making.

And ever since COVID and the cost of living and my mortgage doubling in price, I like this is the kind of like most uncomfortable I felt when it comes to money.

And as much as I love my day job, and I love it, the people I work with are fantastic.

And I am like the least qualified person in the room because I work with developers and designers and stuff and I'm sure they're all getting paid.

A lot of money and I am the least paid, it's fine.

I like the fact that somebody pays me a wage, but at the end of the day, no one else is going to pay me as much as I think I should get paid.

And I can't wait to be for the day where I make as much the amount of money that I want to make.

And I think that that's quite a fun way to think of it.

It's like they're never going to pay me the wage that I want for my life.

And I'm the only person that can do that.

So that's really my, like the, that's the carrot that I'm dangling in front of myself.

So as scary as it can be, and it's like, like as horrible as money and stuff is, and like I don't really have a handle on my own finances, I at least like have a good vision of this is how much money I'll feel good making.

And I'm the only person that's going to get me there.

And my job's never going to pay me a hundred grand a year, which is like, yeah, that'd be great.

But they're never going to pay me 50 grand a year.

You get the opposite.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

The plans I have, trust me.

I think, I think when, when all your friends are authors, it's very easy to forget that like, it's a really rare skill.

It's an unbelievably rare skill to be a good writer.

And I, I, it's something that I get used to brushing off, or I've got used to brushing off.

People often make comments who are not writers.

Like, you know, you have to, I mean, just crazy things.

Like one of my friends was writing, was making a leaflet for a wall skating group.

And she asked for like quotes.

And after that, she's like, oh, you can tell you're a writer.

And when we did the play last year, we had to write a thank you card for the director.

And again, I wrote that and people were like, oh, I'm so glad I've got the right to do it.

And I was like, guys, it's just a few words.

But I mean, to me, that is like, I've spent literal decades working on putting words together.

And it is something that is a skill that, yeah, nobody's gonna pay you to be a novelist as a salary job, but you have this rare and fantastic skill that you spent a long time honing.

And it's not unreasonable to think that that should be compensated for.

I do really, I want to reread this.

I do really recommend that everyone reads We Should All Be Millionaires.

I want to say it's by Rachel Rodgers.

It's just lovely.

Like, it's just a really positive look at like wanting money for good reasons and not not feeling bad about thinking, not necessarily just wanting money for its own sake, but like wanting to be paid for what you're worth and wanting to earn significant amounts of money and saying that's that's your goal.

Yeah, it would be great.

Like I said, like I don't own my house and it does feel like, what if something happens and I can't pay a mortgage anymore?

Like I'd love to not have that worry.

It'd be great.

And I'm plenty of people would know.

I think there's a real, you know, cautiousness about saying that at a time when lots of people are so economically precarious.

And it's very, you know, it's something that's really, really, everyone's conscious of all the time, that it is such a difficult time for a lot of people.

But also in We Show We're Millionaires, a big part of that is about wanting to be financially supportive of your community.

And I think that is something that you can absolutely do.

You can say, I want to be a millionaire so I can, you know, support the particular minority group I come from or support my physical local community and provide opportunities that no one else is going to do because I am aware of this particular need.

And I think that is something to really help the mindset of people who are maybe thinking like money is a bit unpleasant to think about.

But I also do think just really focus on the fact that like, if you're listening to this podcast, it's probably because you're a writer, presumably, and you have an incredibly rare talent that many people would love to have and that you deserve to be paid for.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anything else then you're thinking about in terms of preparing for, preparing financially for working for yourself?

I think just really like reminding myself that it is a business.

And yeah, if I can get, if I can figure out, like you say, you've made a list of how much it costs to produce a book and how much your business costs, like your subscriptions and things.

I've got them all on a spreadsheet, but I've not updated that in a while.

Yeah, I think that once I see that written down, that will hopefully light a fire under me to, to like see not just the cost of the business, but that's like the value of the business as well, is like, this is, these are the bare minimum costs to cover.

And then like, wouldn't it be great if I could also cover my living costs as well.

So yeah, like it's, and we always talk about this, a lot of it is mindset.

It's also hard work, but if you continue to do the work, there's no reason I think why, like why it wouldn't happen.

It's just, it's just like a question of when.

And I'm always convinced it's my next book.

My next book is going to be the one.

My next book is going to be the one.

But at some point that's going to be right.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Why not?

Yeah.

I was going to say one other thing that I think I would also recommend to people that I think the most people wouldn't consider at really any stage until very late in the game.

It's like going to see a financial advisor.

I went to see a financial advisor a couple of years ago.

I can't really remember what inspired me to do it.

Oh, I think I was thinking about buying a house.

And I think I was, I had just paid my student loan off.

I had like an unusual time of money where I was thinking like I've got money in the bank.

And a big part of that was because I lived with my parents during the pandemic because I couldn't, I moved back from Hong Kong and I couldn't live by myself because I was in mean conditions, so I had to live and get support from them, which was great, but also meant, you know, they wouldn't take rent from me and they wouldn't let me pay for food.

So I accidentally saved money, a wonderful privileged position to be in.

And so I was like, I feel like I've been in a weird position with money and that I had never really desperately wanted to own a house.

I love traveling, I love being foot, it's a fancy free, but I had this opportunity.

So I went to see a financial advisor, one in the little village I lived in, and I was saying to him, like, I feel like I'm not doing money right.

Like, I don't really have any long-term money plans.

Should I have a better pension?

Do I need to be saving more?

I don't really know why people save for things.

And he said, oh, people save maybe to get a nicer car.

I was like, I don't really like driving.

Maybe to go travel in the world.

It's like, I've done a load of traveling.

I'm good.

I won't be in a great shape for traveling when I'm older.

And he was like, well, I think you're fine then.

He was like, you don't need flush advice.

You're doing what you need to do.

And that was really reassuring, because I definitely felt like everyone secretly, because that's the big part of being English right, is not talking about money.

I was like, I think everyone secretly has got better money plans than me.

And A, I don't think they do.

And B, he was just like, no, you're fine.

If that's what you need and you've kind of thought it out, then you don't have to be doing the same as everyone else.

You don't need to be working towards having some gigantic nest egg as an old person that you just set on like a dragon.

Sounds like you did it fine.

So and that was free, right?

That was like an initial consultation.

And I just assumed that we were going to do some more actual financial advice afterwards.

He was like, no, you don't need to come back.

So I made him some cupcakes.

Don't stop on my doorstep again.

Yeah.

But it's like, you know, a small village local financial advisor.

He was like a lovely middle-aged man.

Just gave me some nice advice.

So yeah, seek that out.

It was very reassuring.

And I think what I would quite like to do is maybe become more, not necessarily financial literate, but like maybe some more small business literature.

I've tried reading some books that are generally about business.

They're often a bit too hypey.

But I think something more related to business studies, like literally, like when Lorelei goes to take the course about how to run an in.

But it's not very good.

But she also goes to night classes for business.

I was like, I maybe want to go to night class and be Lorelei Gilmore as my permanent dream.

Be more Lorelei Gilmore, go to night school, do that in business.

Yeah, I like learning.

Yeah, I like learning.

And I think that more people could stand to be a bit more financial literate.

I've worked in the pension and finance industry for 15 years.

So I have a level of knowledge that is probably a lot more than a lot of other people have, even the people that I work with right now, ask me a lot of questions about things, like in particular, like pensions and things.

So I've got a lot of that knowledge, so that doesn't scare me.

But if you are somebody who doesn't know anything about pensions, and has your head buried in the sand, and even if you don't agree with having a pension, you should be able to make that choice, like as an educated choice rather than just pretending it doesn't exist.

Yeah, like being financially aware is going to save you so much stress.

I mean, I'm stressed because money is just scary, but it's not because I don't understand it.

It's because I do understand it.

That's my problem.

Like I understand, and it's still scary.

I think some things are scary, like as soon as you face them, then it's like, oh, it's fine.

Like with the financial advisor, I was like, I feel just like this big looming sense that I'm doing something wrong.

And he was like, no, it's fine.

I was like, oh, okay.

I've put off thinking about that for a long time, and it turned out to be a quick conversation.

It was all good.

Yeah.

And a lot of things generally, I think, in life are like that.

So that is a hundred percent life.

A lot of it.

Also, I think my last piece of advice would be, if you're based in the UK, or really, if you speak English, just Google any topic plus the name Martin Lewis, just to get some great advice.

Martin Lewis is a financial expert in the UK who is lovely.

And I recently had to renew my gas and electric bills and my internet bills.

I just Googled Martin Lewis plus internet and Martin Lewis plus gas and electric and my bills.

I've saved a fortune.

Yeah, I need to do that ASAP.

Yeah, he's so good.

And his whole website, it's not just him, him and his team, fantastic.

He's got a great website that he runs and keeps a very, very, very up to date with great advice.

So find someone that you trust, who you know is going to give good, clear advice.

I do try to cater and listen to the Money Programme and the Martin Lewis Show on the radio.

So I'm trying to be better at finances.

But yeah, I think general, more savvy with small businesses, even just because that would make me feel more confident with my decisions would help me.

So that is going to be my next step.

But I do feel like I've come a really long way this year just in terms of practically making moves towards working full time in a financial sense.

Do you feel like you're on the way?

Yeah, I think so.

I've definitely made a lot of big strides towards taking everything a bit more seriously and having a separate bank account and all that stuff has really helped me separate things in my mind.

I think it just in terms of the actual making money and progressively making money to pay myself a wage, that's just like the next hurdle, but everything else, I feel like I'm more set up.

Just as a random little thing to add on in the end, even though we've been wrapping this up for a while.

I recently saw somebody on threads saying, oh, it was my dream to be a full-time writer, and now that I am, I realize I spend most of my time running a small business.

It made me realize that so many people stumble into the making money part.

And before they've even thought about the fact that it's a business.

And I kind of felt a bit bad for her because I thought, well, so you weren't looking at it as a business to start with, so now you've got a lot of work to do.

And at least we're coming at it from a little bit of a slower, more gentle upward hill rather than just a smack at the top and now you've got to roll way back down.

At least we're thinking about it as a business now and getting everything in place.

I feel like this is not to be awful to her.

I can't remember who it was.

It was just some random person.

I feel like we're doing it well.

I feel like we're winning.

I feel comfortable for us, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a big benefit.

We get to make mistakes.

Yeah.

No, I think I find it too stressful.

I don't like unknown things which could potentially ruin you.

I like to be able to feel medium confident.

Like I jump and a net will appear.

But whereas if you're overnight success, then maybe you jump and a dragon swallows you whole.

And I don't know if I'm so dragon focused today, but it does seem like the biggest scary thing I could call.

Okay.

So hope that is the last of our last thoughts.

For next week's topic, I said this is a standalone episode.

So next week, we could be doing anything.

Who even knows where we are right now?

I'm sure we'll be back soon with another fascinating topic.

Until then, goodbye.

Goodbye.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

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