29Jan 2018 by Galen
The Four Things You Can Do With Money

The Four Things You Can Do With Money

Galen's musings, Personal Finances
The four things you can do with money This concept is blatantly borrowed from Financial Planning 3.0 by the late Richard Wagner. My plan is to take it and more specifically apply it to content creators with a focus on streamers. Let’s dig in to the four thing you can do with money and the magic formula you can use it figure out the right mix for you! Thing 1: Receive it Receiving money can be extremely sweet or the worst thing in the world. After all, it could be payment for an awesome commission, your first sub, or the sub that gets you to the level you calculated would let you go full time. However, it could also be lottery winnings (check out the stats, usually leads to bad…
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22Jan 2018 by Galen
Mental accounting

Mental accounting

Personal Finances, Running a Business
Mental Accounting We’re continuing our discussion on way to trick yourself into making smarter money moves. I think in particular the method we’re talking about today, mental accounting, can work really well for streamers. What is mental accounting? Mental accounting describes an interesting way that humans think. When we’re looking at some resource that we possess we tend to assign it to a specific category. Picture it like you’re saying that you only use the money in one particular account for one purpose and no other. Perhaps you have certain nicer things you keep to use only when you have company, like a nice bottle of wine. Just remember: mental accounting is assigning a resource to a specific purpose that isn’t necessarily its only purpose. When can it be bad?…
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16Jan 2018 by Galen
Bet on Yourself for Accountability

Bet on Yourself for Accountability

Galen's musings, Personal Finances, Running a Business
I came across a really interesting personal accountability tactic while reading the book Nudge, a book with strong behavioral finance implications. If you’ve not read it before, I think it’s pretty interesting. Anyways, the basic idea is that you set up a meaningful bet that you will do something. That way, you are in control of the outcome. This could be an awesome tactic that helps you improve your stream’s consistency or your business’s operations. The book’s examples The author is a professor and part of his work involves mentoring PhD students during their thesis. His students have a strong financial incentive to finish their thesis as soon as possible because it leads to a promotion, increased pay, and increased benefits. However, one of the main ideas in the book is…
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08Jan 2018 by Galen
The Employer Identification Number for Streamers

The Employer Identification Number for Streamers

Running a Business
Hey folks, this is a hopefully quick article. Today we’re going to cover the Employer Identification Number (EIN) and when/why you might need it. This is one of those random business-y things that may or may not apply to you. Since generally streamers aren’t like restaurants with their staffing needs the requirement to get an EIN is a little gray. However, it’s really good to have looked at it and decided that it doesn’t apply instead of never having heard of it. I can tell already that this is going to be one of those boring articles that someone reads when they google EIN and streamer and not something people are drawn to because of the exhilarating title. What is the EIN? The EIN functions a lot like your Social…
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01Jan 2018 by Galen
New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions

Galen's musings
I’m often a bit cynical. Because of that, I’ve often looked down upon New Year’s resolutions. “Why”, I scoffed, “would the passing of an arbitrary date make you change your life?” Well, I’m a changed man. I’ve come to realize that anything that can help motivate someone to improve can be a positive force. Also, what am I doing bothering with how someone else runs their life? Point being, this year I decided to make some resolutions for myself and to suggest some for streamers. Hopefully some of my ideas help you with coming up with your own goals or resolutions. My resolutions There are SO MANY things that I could and should improve. However, I firmly believe that you’re most likely to achieve your goals if you’re realistic. There…
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18Dec 2017 by Galen
How to ask effective panel questions

How to ask effective panel questions

Galen's musings
This one’s a little different than most of my posts but it’s been on my mind since TwitchCon. My awesome panel went a little longer than we intended (totally my fault) so I felt as though we didn’t have enough time for questions. Part of the problem was that we didn't get effective panel questions. Let’s jump right in to how to ask better questions! Have a Clear Goal What is it you hope to learn from your question? Hopefully you know that before getting up to the mic. If you’re not certain what it is you want to learn in the moment or have a very involved question it may not be appropriate to ask it at a panel. After all, the panelists are having to interpret what you're…
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11Dec 2017 by Galen
Holiday Shopping Best Practices

Holiday Shopping Best Practices

Personal Finances
Tis the season to spend tons of money on stuff we hope other people want. In return, hopefully they’re spending tons of money on us, right? Because let’s be honest, I would really, really, really love to get a Switch, Mario Odyssey, and Breath of the Wild. That’s a pretty expensive present right there. Yay holiday shopping. I swear, I’m only slightly cynical about this stuff. I really do like giving and receiving gifts. However, it’s an area where that good intention and the awesome warm glow from giving a gift can spiral out of control. Plus, just think about it. Would you want a family member to be financially uncomfortable but get you a gift or would you rather their full, unperturbed presence? Let’s dive in to it. Set…
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04Dec 2017 by Galen
Top 7 mistakes streamers make with their business and personal finances

Top 7 mistakes streamers make with their business and personal finances

Personal Finances, Running a Business, Taxes
We’re all human. Humans make mistakes. Therefore, we all make mistakes. As you can see, I took logic in college. Don’t worry though, you can recover from (and maybe even prevent) mistakes. Here are the top mistakes I see streamers making in their business and personal finances. If it’ll make you feel better as you read it, everyone makes the personal finance mistakes and most business owners, regardless of industry, make the business mistakes. Business Mistakes Not separating business and personal accounts. If you’re running a business you’ll make your life worlds easier by keeping it separate from your personal finances. They are of course tied together but they are separate in important ways. First, you pay taxes on what the business earns, less what it spent to earn that…
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27Nov 2017 by Galen
How a planner can help streamers and viewers

How a planner can help streamers and viewers

Galen's musings, Personal Finances, Running a Business
First, I will fully admit that this article’s a bit more self-serving than the others I’ve written. After all, it’s telling you why working with a planner like me is good for you! Regardless, you should read to the end. I started my business because I believe working with a planner can make Twitch a better place for broadcasters and viewers. The better you’re doing financially the more comfortable and confident you’ll be and that shines through when you’re live. I believe that having a planner is important enough that my wife and I hire someone to do our planning. The outside perspective really, really helps. You want someone who is a fee only fiduciary- make sure you ask! Everyone First, we figure out what you want to do in…
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