12Mar 2018 by Galen
Retirement Accounts for Streamers

Retirement Accounts for Streamers

Personal Finances, Running a Business, Taxes
Moblord's Mean Retirement Intro: Look, you're probably a great broadcaster. People like you. People sub and donate to you. But what I'm about to say is going to seem pretty harsh: You almost certainly won't retire as a career-long broadcaster. Really not a reflection on you personally as much as it is just a numbers game. Less than 1% of broadcasters are partners and less than 1% of partners made over $20k last year. It's similar to the kind of numbers from sports or acting, so not totally unique, but it's rare to hear anything but the winner's stories told. Those who don't make the 1% of the 1% go on to do other things with the rest of their lives and it becomes just a great story for the…
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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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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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20Nov 2017 by Galen
How and why to set up a payroll.

How and why to set up a payroll.

Personal Finances, Running a Business, Taxes
Previously we’ve covered how you can potentially save money on taxes by incorporating your stream as an S-corporation. Please read up on it as there are some rules you need to make sure you’re following to actually get the tax benefit.  The core concept to remember is that you wear two hats in your business. One is the owner who is responsible for making business decisions. The other is the employee who is actually providing the labor the business needs to earn income. That employee is paid via a payroll. One word of warning: This advice is based on the assumption that you're organized as an S-corporation and the only employees of the business are also owners. If your business has non-owner employees payroll gets significantly more complicated. A second…
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30Oct 2017 by Galen
Self Evaluation is a key to success

Self Evaluation is a key to success

Personal Finances, Running a Business
Self-evaluation and business success I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your stream is a business. Unfortunately, it’s really easy to get caught up in the day to day of running a business. You have to handle the immediately due tasks, plan for what you need to accomplish in the next week or month, and eventually do long-term planning. There’s one asset that most people forget to analyze and it’s themselves, the business owner. In fact, it’s the most valuable asset the business has. You’d be remiss if you ignored it. It’s time for some self evaluation! Why I touched on it in the intro, but the biggest why is because your business depends on you. Therefore, you need to know as much as you can about the…
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