Galen, Author at Pajama Pants Finance

13Mar 2021 by Galen

American Rescue Plan and Content Creators

Taxes

President Biden just signed the American Rescue Plan (hereafter ARP), known commonly as the bill sending out $1,400 stimulus checks to many Americans. However, it contains many provisions beyond that, some of which apply to content creators. We’re not going to cover the money for schools to upgrade their filtration system or the stuff to help local governments do their vaccine distribution. As almost always, this is very US specific info. Let’s dive in to it. Stimulus The big-ticket item for many people is the stimulus check. If no one else claims you as a dependent for tax purposes you may be eligible to get a check directly from the government. The new bill gives $1,400 per tax filer and dependent, meaning a single filer with no dependents could get…

20May 2020 by Galen

PPP Forgivness for Content Creators

Running a Business

I hadn’t previously written about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for content creators because of unclear guidance from the IRS. That’s changed a bit now, so let’s dive into it. This is only relevant to US-based creators. What’s the PPP? The PPP is a federal program helping companies cover their payroll costs during quarantine/lockdown due to COVID-19. It’s disbursed as a loan with potential for getting part or all of the loan forgiven. The basic loan portion must be repaid over 2 years and has an insanely low 1% interest rate. The funds are disbursed on a first come, first served basis. Why are you only writing about this now? Previously, it was unclear whether someone who is an owner/operator (owns and runs the business) could get their personal payroll…

24Mar 2020 by Galen

Streaming in a downturn

Galen's musings

Streaming and YouTube are well positioned to thrive right now during COVID-19 lockdown where other entertainment suffers. At least as of writing this article many countries are closing bar, restaurants, sports venues, and concert halls, as well as asking that people stay indoors (shelter in place). Group gatherings over 10 people are prohibited. This leaves indoor, solo activities, especially Netflix, YouTube, and livestreaming well positioned. Let’s talk about why. Most of the things I mention here as “streaming” will also apply to YouTube/VOD content. Streaming has some traits of an inferior good Streaming has qualities that make it similar to the economic concept of an inferior good. I’m not saying that streaming is inferior to something. In fact, it’s a trait that could help all of us in the streaming…

13Jan 2020 by Galen

Do I Follow My Own Advice?

Galen's musings

Do I follow my own advice? It’s a reasonable question to ask of anyone who gives advice. After all, you might question an overweight dietician, a broke financial planner, or a CPA who owes back taxes. They’re supposed to know better! Of course, as you may understand, knowing and doing are different things. So, here’s how I follow my own advice. Separate business and personal I separate my business and personal finances and I have since the start. This one is a biggie, and I’ve written about it here. Keeping my business and personal finances serves a couple of purposes. First, it makes it much easier for me to know how my business is doing! Using separate bank accounts, credit cards, and PayPal means that even if I weren’t working…

21Oct 2019 by Galen

Invoices

Uncategorized

Credit where it’s due, this article on invoicing comes courtesy of a Twitter thread lamenting that it can be tough to get streamers to send an invoice to get paid for their work. So, my goal with this is to talk about what an invoice is, why you’d create an invoice, and some places where you can find templates. What is an invoice? An invoice is a document you send to a company or individual for whom you did work or to whom you sold a product. It’s your way of putting on paper what they owe you. It should detail your information (company, contact info), specific identifying information for the invoice like an ID number, information on the buyer, information on the product that was sold (price, quantity, services…

09Sep 2019 by Galen

Financial planning lessons from Subnautica

Galen's musings, Personal Finances, Running a Business

I love Subnautica. It’s amazing. I lose hours and hours to it without realizing that they’re passing by. Really the only downside is if my wife tries to get my attention, she invariably makes me jump out of my chair because the atmosphere can make me so anxious. Stupid Reapers. Anyways, the reason I say all of that is there are some important planning lessons you can take from Subnautica and apply to your above sea level life. Let’s dive into it. This will have some spoilers. Survival first then fancy stuff Your first task in Subnautica is to get your baseline survival and survival gear in order. You need to figure out how to get food, water, basic materials, and the tools that let you slowly advance. As pretty…

02Sep 2019 by Galen

Attractive states for streamers

Personal Finances, Running a Business

If you’re a streamer your cost of living can have a dramatic impact on your ability to succeed in your business. For background on this article read this cost of living basics article I wrote recently. In this article we’ll look at the best places for streamers to live based on cost of living and internet speed. I used data on cost of living from here and internet speed from here. Subsequently, I went in to specific city data from here. For each state I looked at the top 2 cities by size as well as all cities over 250k population. Finally, I threw in some information on some of the common streaming cities to give a sense of how they compare on cost. I pulled the data for those…

08Jul 2019 by Galen

Free steps you can take to improve your streaming business

Running a Business

I give a lot of advice on this blog that involves some sort of cost for your business. A lot of those things, while important, can be tough to take on right as you’re starting your business. Given that, we’re going to cover some free steps you can take that would help. We talked about this on YourBrandYourBusiness, if you’d prefer audio/video format. Separate business and personal banking We’ve discussed this before here. Basically, you should have a separate bank account for your personal and business money. It makes your accounting, tax prep, and just life in general easier. Fortunately, you can open some free bank accounts or even subaccounts at your current bank that should make this step relatively easy. Separate Paypal account You will really want a separate…

15Apr 2019 by Galen

Twitch Net 15 Payout

Running a Business

Twitch moved to a net 15 payout structure! Previously they were net 45. Today we’re going to talk about what that means, why it’s good for you, and the one minor downside. What was net 45? The “net” in net 45 meant that Twitch paid you out 45 days after the end of the month in which you earned the money. So, if you earned money in April of this year it would be 45 days from the end of the month before you saw the money. That means your April payout came around June 15th. That’s a while to wait! What is net 15? Net 15 means your Twitch payout comes 30 days earlier than a net 45 day payout. So, your April 2019 earnings should come on May…

25Feb 2019 by Galen

March 15 tax filing date

Taxes

Did you know that you might need to do a tax filing on March 15th? The good news is that most people don’t need to worry about it. However, if it is something you’ll need to worry about you really shouldn’t forget it. Who needs to worry? March 15th is the tax filing deadline for partnerships and S-corporations. Additionally, it’s the last date at which you could make an S-corp election for 2019. For more info on why you might care about S-corporations check out this article. That means you need to actually get your taxes done earlier than you’re expecting. The reason is because these are pass through entities meaning any profits pass through to you without being taxed at the business level. Therefore, the forms need to send…

Author: Galen