The Power of Financial Intentionality for Creatives

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Welcome to CreativeMind Smart Money, the podcast where

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creativity and business smarts collide.

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I'm your host, Samantha Eck, bookkeeper, business coach, and

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your go to guide for building the creative business of your dreams.

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Whether it's mastering your money, streamlining your systems, or growing

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your business, I'm here to share insights that empower you to thrive.

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Plus, I'll be bringing in industry experts to dive into all aspects

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of entrepreneurship, so you can turn your passion into profit

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without losing your creative spark.

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Let's get started

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You are listening to the Creative Mind Smart Mini podcast, and

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today I wanna get into a topic that is a little bit more conversational

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and a little bit more personal.

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And I wanna talk about getting intentional with money.

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A lot of the times on this podcast, I've talked about being very intentional

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and mindful with your spending.

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And we even had that episode a couple weeks back where we talked about.

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Investments and investing with intentionality, but also

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having those reflections.

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And I'm a big person who thinks that you should be very

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intentional with your money.

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And a lot of people might think, okay, you know, I don't like that.

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I just wanna spend my money willy-nilly, or I wanna have

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the freedom to spend your money.

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But being intentional with money isn't supposed to be restrictive

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and it's not meant to be.

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This sort of strict guideline telling you that you can't spend.

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It's more just saying, I want my money to go here, and it's giving you

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that intentionality and purpose so that you're not spending your money

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on things that might not serve you.

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I. Because money doesn't magically manage itself, and if you're really

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not intentional with it, it's gonna disappear faster than you realize.

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So small business owners need a plan when it comes to their finances, whether

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that's a really strict budget, whether it's a flexible budget, whatever it is.

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You need some sort of plan and I am gonna get a little bit into some

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budgeting topics today, such as YNAB.

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And I'm actually going to create an episode around this because I love

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YNAB and I just thought about that and I really need to talk about it.

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And of course you guys know that I'm getting more

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conversational in these podcasts.

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The more I do them, the more comfortable I feel and.

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I just love everybody who's been talking to me about how they're such a

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big fan of the podcast and they really appreciate the podcast, and I just

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love making this a resource for you.

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So I do wanna remind you as well that if you have a topic that you are so

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excited to hear about or you have something that you're like, Samantha

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hasn't touched on that yet, but I'm really interested in knowing about it.

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I do have a form in my description box you can fill out and request a specific topic.

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So there's a difference between being reactive and being intentional with money.

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If you are someone who has a $5,000 in your business bank account.

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You know, you have subscriptions coming out, so you make sure you have the money

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for the subscriptions, but then whatever's left over, you pay yourself and then

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you have still some money left over.

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You're like, okay, I'm just gonna leave that in my bank.

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Here's what this looks like, especially if you don't have some way of tracking

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this or knowing where it's going.

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You are going to be what I like to call reactive.

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Let's say you saw an ad for a new software and you get that shiny pen syndrome

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that we've talked about before, and you immediately react and purchase that.

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If you don't know if that money is meant for subscriptions or for

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something else, or you haven't technically set it aside, you're being

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very reactive with your money and you could end up hurting yourself because.

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A lot of us nowadays, we don't, we don't track our subscriptions.

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We don't track that stuff.

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But if you're being very intentional with it, maybe you do have $200 set

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aside and you're like, Hey, I can afford $200 worth of random purchases

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this month because maybe I saw a course that just, I absolutely needed it.

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But for someone like me, I use YNAB, and I'm very intentional with my money.

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When I put.

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When it comes in.

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So all of my money comes in on the first, and I've set it up this way

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so that my cash flow is airtight.

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Because a lot of the times, as service providers will have cash flow coming

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in on the fifth, on the 10th, on the 15th, and it just causes us to

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have these massive gaps in between our cash where we can cover things.

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Whereas if I have all my money coming in on the first, I can appropriately plan

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my entire month out and then say, okay.

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This is where all my money is going.

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This is what I have left over.

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And that is called being intentional.

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And within YNAB, I assign all of that money to its categories.

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And this is where I'm kind of rolling into this next topic that I wanna talk about.

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Why every dollar needs a job.

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So allocating revenue instead of just seeing what's left is so important.

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And again, I wanna just mention that especially in this day and age

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where a lot of us are so distracted, we have a DHD, we have, you know.

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Neuro minds.

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We have all those things going on where our brains are just.

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They short circuit because there's so much going on that you really need to

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think about allocating your money wisely because if you have a place where you can

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see where everything is going and you know that you have extra money or you know that

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you don't have extra money, you're going to be less reactive and more intentional.

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Like I said, if you only have $200 to make on random purchases.

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You're going to be more intentional about what you buy.

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So if you see an ad for a course and you're like, Hmm, that's a

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little bit over my budget, you're not going to react immediately.

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And this is where we were talking about that reflection period and

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looking at those investments.

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This plays into that because if you're intentional with your money, you're

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going to reflect and be more intentional about what you're purchasing and less

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emotional and reactive because you know you don't have the funds to get there.

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Now there's often common money leaks that we see ourselves having, again,

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like subscriptions, tracking expenses, underpricing, and if you don't list these

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out, you're never going to see them.

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Now, of course, you can just look in QuickBooks and say, okay, here's

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what I have every month, and you can use that to formulate a list.

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But looking in QuickBooks is still being reactive and not being intentional.

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Whereas if you have a list and you're like, okay, this month.

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I have 12 subscriptions that I'm paying for.

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I know they're coming out on this date, this date, this date, and this date.

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That's $200 that I need to set aside.

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Oh wait, this subscription I'm not using anymore.

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I'm gonna cancel that so that I can save myself that money this month.

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That's where that intentionality comes in.

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And we've talked about a lot of these different topics.

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We've talked about subscriptions, we've talked about impulse PR spending.

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We've talked about pricing, but we haven't talked about the intentionality behind it.

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And that's why I'm so excited about this topic is because it's one of the

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things that I talked to my clients about being in intentional the most.

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Because when you're intentional with your funds, everything kind

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of comes into a full circle loop.

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One of my talks that I talk about often is financial goals, and I

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always talk about setting certain goals like a pay goal for yourself.

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Because if you set up a pay goal, and then let's say you set up an

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expense goal, you're like, I wanna spend 20% of my revenue on expenses,

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but I want to keep 40% of my revenue.

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You know that 60% of your revenue is already allocated, so that

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60% is already put somewhere.

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So now if you're like, okay, this is how much I need to make.

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Let's just say it.

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Throw a number out there.

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Let's say it's 5,000.

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Between paying yourself and expenses, you now know that in order to

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have a little bit of a buffer, your pricing needs to be higher.

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So this is where I'm saying like all that comes into a full circle

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moment where it all connects.

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So when you have that financial roadmap, and I know that sounds.

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So like goofy when you talk about it that way, the financial roadmap.

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But when you set those goals, you track those expenses and

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you plan for all of that stuff.

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It is so powerful because it gives you these key elements all over the place.

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And I know that your brain might not think like that.

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Trust me.

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Because again, with this, in this day and age where we're distracted,

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there are so many things going on.

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We have a million different things running through our head.

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That's where people like me come in to be your partner and help you think in

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different ways that actually matter.

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So there are simple systems that build intentionality.

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And if you're not someone who's like, okay, I just wanna be reactive

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with my money, I don't wanna track it, I promise you, I promise you

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that a budget is not restrictive.

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I am not saying that every single dollar of yours needs to have.

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In exact place it needs to be.

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You can make a vague bucket of, Hey, this is random stuff I wanna

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purchase, or Hey, I wanna purchase coffee, or I wanna have a food budget.

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That is totally okay because it, the point and purpose of this is for you to be

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intentional and say, okay, you know what?

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I don't wanna spend more than $300 on coffee this month.

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I'm going to set up, a pocket in my budget for that so

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that I can spend for that.

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So.

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Simple systems, again, are budgeting and one of my favorites to use is YNAB

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and I'm now going to do an episode on it, so keep an arrow for that.

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It'll be, probably in the next couple weeks as well.

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So that we can get into that.

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The next thing you can do is forecasting.

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Forecasting is difficult because especially if you have a fluctuating

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income, it's very difficult to forecast because you don't know

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if you're gonna make that money next month or if you're not gonna

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make that money next month because.

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Industries are so volatile, if you know what I mean.

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Some one month you can have like 20 k, and the next month you can have $200.

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So forecasting is very volatile.

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There is a way to forecast, but most of the time the best forecast comes when

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you have monthly recurring revenue.

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So if you do have monthly recurring revenue, it's easy to forecast, okay,

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here's what I know I'm going to have, here's what I think I'm going to

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have, and then like actually looking.

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And then of course, intentionality comes with looking at your numbers regularly.

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I know I've talked about this a lot, but setting up a regular money date

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and checking in with yourself and being intentional with your money is going to

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be so helpful because if you're like, Hey, I wanna be intentional and set aside

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money for a bookkeeper, then it's going to be better for you in the long run.

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Because you're gonna actually know that you wanna intentionally

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set aside those funds.

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This all kind of ties back into a little bit of my faith as well.

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You guys know I'm a Christian as well, and you don't need to be a Christian, but

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this does tie back to that intentionality and that point of stewarding your money

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well, because when you steward your money well, it kind of ends up giving

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you space to grow and space to bloom.

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Because like I said, if you have 60% where you are allocating that specifically for

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expenses and preparing yourself, and then that other 40% you can reinvest back into

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your business, you again, you can put it into those random categories for things

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like that, you can put it into a buffer.

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You can build up the business of your dreams and the fin, the personal

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lifestyle of your dreams if you just be intentional with your money.

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And again, I wanna remind you that being intentional isn't about restriction.

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It's about.

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Freedom and making sure that your business supports the life that you want.

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So I want to encourage you to start tracking and planning today because

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those small steps will add up.

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And if you're like, I'm curious about this yNAB.

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Samantha, make sure you hit subscribe and leave a review.

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And then of course share this with a friend because in a couple weeks

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I'll come up with a come out with that YNAB episode and we'll dive

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into budgeting and all those things.

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'cause I'm so excited.

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YNAB is one of my favorite things and I actually help a couple clients

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with personal budgeting as well to kind of get that into their game

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plan because I just love YNAB and I love messing around in there.

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So we'll deep dive into that later.

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But as always, again.

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I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.

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I really appreciate you listening, and I love you guys so much for

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sticking around with me and listening to my conversational kind of

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chatty rants and YNABpping all day.

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But I wish you the best week ever.

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We'll see you next week.

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Farewell fellow travelers.