Speaker 1: Episode three twenty Frugal Side Hustles Bookkeeping with Kate Johnson.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 1: save money, embrace simplicity and live your life.
Speaker 2: Here your hosts Jen and Jill. You Me me and
Speaker 2: me me you.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Jen, my name is Jill.
Speaker 1: And today we are continuing our Frugal side Hustle series.
Speaker 1: We do one of these interviews every other month on
Speaker 1: a side hustle that is not only the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be lucrative, but is very low cost to start. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you're not going to invest any money, but we
Speaker 1: think that you can start a side hustle, start a
Speaker 1: business without a ton of capital upfront, and that's what
Speaker 1: we highlight in these interviews.
Speaker 3: And this one's something that you can do virtually, which
Speaker 3: is even better. And Kate, it gives such a good explanation,
Speaker 3: so I'm excited for you all to hear her. But first,
Speaker 3: this episode is brought to you by Only Friends, the
Speaker 3: safest place on the Internet to be Do you want
Speaker 3: to save more and spend less? Only have five minutes
Speaker 3: a day? Then get excited because the friend Letter launches
Speaker 3: July tenth. It's actually a newsletter that comes to your email.
Speaker 3: We're turning the newsletter on its head and delivering everything
Speaker 3: we know about saving money and having fun while doing
Speaker 3: it to your inbox three times a week. So on Mondays,
Speaker 3: your emails from us are going to be all about freebies.
Speaker 3: Will tell you what companies are giving away freebies or
Speaker 3: where you might be able to find free events in
Speaker 3: your area. Wednesdays is all about saving. You'll get tips
Speaker 3: on one budget category and an actionable step to take.
Speaker 3: Each week and Friday we will send you sliping' and
Speaker 3: sliding into the weekend with some spending psychology, mental shortcuts,
Speaker 3: helpful hacks, ways to think about things, reframes to help
Speaker 3: you say no to the things that you don't value
Speaker 3: and say the biggest yes is to the things that
Speaker 3: you love. So if you want to save more spend less,
Speaker 3: find out about all the free stuff at Frugal Friends
Speaker 3: podcast dot com. Slash friend Letter so you don't miss
Speaker 3: the first edition. Only Friends what I wanted the newsletter
Speaker 3: to be called and was vetoed, but now it's called
Speaker 3: friend Letter. So yeah, I don't go to only Friends.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you'll find, but it won't be.
Speaker 1: Not promoting that unfortunately. All right, so we are super
Speaker 1: excited about the friend letter. It is uh chef's kiss
Speaker 1: so good.
Speaker 2: This is the second time I've done that today. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 2: it's the morning too.
Speaker 1: I know if you are interested in side Hustles, which
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this episode, I anticipate you are.
Speaker 1: We have several other We do these every other month.
Speaker 1: So we've got like episode three oh eight on becoming
Speaker 1: a virtual assistant. We have episode two ninety three how
Speaker 1: to start a cleaning business, Episode two seventy eight how
Speaker 1: to get into running salesforce for companies. And so this
Speaker 1: is going to be something similar to sales Force in
Speaker 1: that this is something a little more specialized. It is
Speaker 1: moreover free to learn how to do. It's going to
Speaker 1: take you several months to learn how to do it.
Speaker 1: It is maybe not as lucrative as salesforce, but depends
Speaker 1: on how niche you can get with bookkeeping. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't take as.
Speaker 4: Long to learn.
Speaker 1: So definitely check out Just search Frugal Side Hustle either
Speaker 1: on where you're listening to this podcast or on our website.
Speaker 1: Frugalfriendspodcast dot com and you can see all of our
Speaker 1: interviews with people who have started frugal side hustles. But
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for this interview because I actually heard
Speaker 1: Kate Josephine Johnson on the side Hustle show like five
Speaker 1: years ago, and so I loved her. Then I had
Speaker 1: no desire to start a bookkeeping business. You will find
Speaker 1: out why. But so she has been doing this for
Speaker 1: a while and she is just cut to the chase nobs,
Speaker 1: a lovely friend and a friend who I met like
Speaker 1: a half hour ago. She owns Heritage Business Services, which
Speaker 1: is a virtual bookkeeping firm serving small businesses, and she's
Speaker 1: helping others build virtual accounting careers with her bookkeeping side
Speaker 1: hustle community on Facebook and her sub stack. This was
Speaker 1: just a great episode and so excited to share with you.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Hey, Kate, welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast. We're so
Speaker 1: excited to have you here.
Speaker 5: Oh I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 5: So let's get into this. Tell us what is bookkeeping
Speaker 5: and do you need like a certain degree to do
Speaker 5: this as a side hustle.
Speaker 4: All right, So bookkeeping is just the recording of the
Speaker 4: financial transactions of a business. You spend money, you make money,
Speaker 4: you pay yourself, maybe you buy some equipment, but it's
Speaker 4: basically recording that where it goes in typically one of
Speaker 4: three financial statements. In accounting, there's the profit and loss,
Speaker 4: balance sheet, cash flow statement. That's like the accounting fundamental side.
Speaker 4: Bookkeeping typically is like kind of compared to taxes. It's
Speaker 4: not taxes. So there are accounting professionals who like the
Speaker 4: day to day stuff, and there are accounting professionals who
Speaker 4: like the tax Some people do both. I only do bookkeeping.
Speaker 4: I don't do tax smart woman. Yes, yes, that's how
Speaker 4: that's how I feel. So, you know, at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, in a way, it's kind of simple, right,
Speaker 4: like the way I explained that it's it's recording daily
Speaker 4: transactions of a business. But I would say, like, I
Speaker 4: think it's a lot more complicated than that. People study
Speaker 4: accounting for for years to get a degree. You don't
Speaker 4: have to have a degree to do this, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't have a CPA. That's kind of the the
Speaker 4: you know, the capstone credential for the accounting profession and
Speaker 4: bookkeeping to me, and accounting is kind of the umbrella term,
Speaker 4: and there's bookkeeping, audit, tax, there's there's like underneath the
Speaker 4: word accounting, and you can you know, you don't have
Speaker 4: to go all the way to get your CPA. A
Speaker 4: lot of CPAs make terrible bookkeepers, Okay, like they don't.
Speaker 4: They don't like it. They would rather do tax or
Speaker 4: they'd rather do more advice stuff rather than clicking around
Speaker 4: and categorizing every transaction and building finance statements and that
Speaker 4: sort of thing. So, but I do think you need education.
Speaker 4: I think it can be self taught. There's no in America,
Speaker 4: there's no formal credential that is required to be a bookkeeper.
Speaker 4: In some foreign countries, I don't know how you know
Speaker 4: global Ya's audiences, but I think like Australia and England
Speaker 4: there is like a credential to call yourself a bookkeeper.
Speaker 4: Probably some more places than that, But in America anyone
Speaker 4: can call themselves a bookkeeper. But my goal, and kind
Speaker 4: of some of the stuff I do is make sure
Speaker 4: people are good at the job when they want to
Speaker 4: do this. But a lot of people learn just from
Speaker 4: online courses or you can buy textbooks and then you
Speaker 4: can take software training, so textbooks to learn the fundamentals
Speaker 4: all the software programs that are in use now, Like
Speaker 4: no one's doing general ledgers on paper, right, Like that's
Speaker 4: that's the olden days. It's all in the cloud now,
Speaker 4: and all those software companies have extensive training on how
Speaker 4: to use their software. But you know, garbage in, garbage out.
Speaker 4: If you do don't know what you're doing, then using
Speaker 4: the software, no matter how much you're clicking around, you
Speaker 4: could still make big mistakes. So that's some of the
Speaker 4: ways people learn. And that's kind of what bookkeeping is.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great like bookkeeping is is not something
Speaker 1: from what I'm understanding, it's not something you need like
Speaker 1: an accounting degree in, but it is specialized enough to
Speaker 1: where if you get some education that you can charge
Speaker 1: more for your services than just being like a general
Speaker 1: VA or something like very lower barrier to entry, but
Speaker 1: it's not super hard from what it sounds like. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it has a degree of difficulty, but it's not
Speaker 1: like a high barrier to entry.
Speaker 4: I kind of one phrase I always keep saying is like,
Speaker 4: it's not rocket science, but it does take time to learn.
Speaker 4: If you need money tomorrow, if you need money tomorrow,
Speaker 4: don't go hang out your shingle saying you're a virtual bookkeeper.
Speaker 4: There are you know you can you could be a
Speaker 4: pressure washer or a babysitter or like that's if you
Speaker 4: need money tomorrow, right, if you need money, But if
Speaker 4: you want to build like skill based business, skill based
Speaker 4: income stream, it's not it doesn't take five years to
Speaker 4: learn it. You know it might And lots of people
Speaker 4: have had accounting Like if you have a college degree, like,
Speaker 4: there's a good chance you took like one or two
Speaker 4: accounting classes and then changed your major or you know,
Speaker 4: just something else. So I think that a lot of
Speaker 4: people have one or two classes in accounting, even not
Speaker 4: formal classes, not at a college necessarily, but just like
Speaker 4: true like fundamentals training, you're gonna know quickly if you are,
Speaker 4: if you like it, and if you're inclined to it,
Speaker 4: and if you want to dig in more, because it
Speaker 4: can get complex because business owners do crazy things, and
Speaker 4: it's when they do the crazy things that's when your
Speaker 4: knowledge of accounting is tested. If they just send an
Speaker 4: invoice and then maybe buy a Zoom subscription to a computer,
Speaker 4: that's easy when they need payroll, when they're paying estimated
Speaker 4: taxes when they want to start a retirement plan, when
Speaker 4: they buy a truck, like, that's when it starts to
Speaker 4: get harder.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love how you're describing this, and I can
Speaker 3: appreciate the degree of difficulty you're kind of laying the
Speaker 3: foundation for, because when I first heard that bookkeeping was
Speaker 3: a job people could have, this was years ago. In
Speaker 3: my mind, the way that I understood it was like
Speaker 3: how my grandmother keeps logs in her checkbook.
Speaker 2: You can get paid to do that. It's very simple.
Speaker 3: She loves doing it while she eats her Oreo cookies.
Speaker 3: And then now that I've dug into the finances of
Speaker 3: businesses and our own business, it gets complicated and you
Speaker 3: really have to have attention to detail that many business owners,
Speaker 3: especially where entrepreneurs don't want and so finding people who
Speaker 3: are good at that and kind of have a knowledge
Speaker 3: of how do I allocate this, how do I understand
Speaker 3: this transaction to be able to set you up well
Speaker 3: when it comes to tax time. Yes, it's a need
Speaker 3: across the board. But as you're already kind of just describing,
Speaker 3: I'm curious, Kate, what you would say would be some
Speaker 3: of those skill sets for someone who might be interested
Speaker 3: in bookkeeping as a side hustle, or if they're interested
Speaker 3: in starting their own business, what are some of the
Speaker 3: key things that you know you must have this or
Speaker 3: if you have this, it's like that's a red flag,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna love it.
Speaker 4: So let's assume that everyone is going to do what
Speaker 4: it takes to learn the skill set. Like so I'm
Speaker 4: going to assume that only people. I don't want anyone
Speaker 4: to do this who doesn't know, you know what a
Speaker 4: debiting credit means, what a assets plus assets, sequels, live beliefs,
Speaker 4: plesse equity means, like that those are that's our foundation.
Speaker 4: Beyond that, one of the things I see is that
Speaker 4: a lot of people who are inclined to bookkeeping are
Speaker 4: not entrepreneurs. Okay, like you just described entreprene natural entrepreneur
Speaker 4: hates the bookkeeping, right and so why so probably the
Speaker 4: bookkeeper kind of hates the entrepreneurship. And when you have
Speaker 4: a side hustle, y'all, that's kind of a business. Like
Speaker 4: it is, it is a business. Except I have found
Speaker 4: ways that I suggest to people who if you know
Speaker 4: you're not an entrepreneur, you can still go to work
Speaker 4: for someone. There are big firms like you know, into It,
Speaker 4: who makes quick books, has a staff of bookkeepers that
Speaker 4: they hire, and they're part time jobs. It's like twenty
Speaker 4: hours a week. You have to be kind of expi
Speaker 4: at some experience to get hired. But I think that's
Speaker 4: a great way for people who just like I want
Speaker 4: to go to work and be told what to do.
Speaker 4: I'm really good at my task and then I want
Speaker 4: to close my computer and forget it, versus the entrepreneur
Speaker 4: who's on twenty four to seven. And so if you
Speaker 4: have to first decide are do you want to? Are
Speaker 4: you ready to be an entrepreneur and in this field?
Speaker 4: And if you're not, that's okay. There's lots of ways
Speaker 4: that you can work part time for people. But if
Speaker 4: you but after that, all bookkeepers need to also be
Speaker 4: good storytellers. The best bookkeepers are good storytellers. So y'all
Speaker 4: are business owners, y'all? And so you know, like, well,
Speaker 4: I can look at a financial statement, but I don't
Speaker 4: know what it means, Like I need someone to tell
Speaker 4: me this, like pick the most three three best important
Speaker 4: things that I need to know so I can change
Speaker 4: and make more money next month or next year or
Speaker 4: where am I? You know, am I on the downhill slide?
Speaker 4: And I don't even see it? So a bookkeeper who
Speaker 4: is able to communicate, because we've established that people know
Speaker 4: the technical stuff. If you're able to communicate, you're going
Speaker 4: to stand out from the crowd because a lot of
Speaker 4: accounting types kind of struggle with that. There's ways that
Speaker 4: you can do it in writing, there's ways that you can,
Speaker 4: you know, do a pre recorded video if you're not
Speaker 4: good at like talking on the fly like this always.
Speaker 4: But that's what a business owner really needs is help
Speaker 4: me understand my numbers rather than just click click click,
Speaker 4: because that the business owner doesn't like the clicking in
Speaker 4: the software. So yeah, so technical skills is a given
Speaker 4: communicating the story of the finances of the business. And again,
Speaker 4: the more you know the technical skills, the more that's
Speaker 4: going to come naturally. You're I can look at a
Speaker 4: profit and laws statement and I can read a story
Speaker 4: in it if you But that's because I see them
Speaker 4: a lot. I know. I know them like the back
Speaker 4: of my hand. I know the red flags, I know
Speaker 4: the trouble spots. I know where all the people say,
Speaker 4: well the bodies are buried. I know where that happens
Speaker 4: in financial statements and can point that out to a
Speaker 4: business owner. What other skills I'm gonna say one more.
Speaker 4: In today's age, you need to be like tech curious
Speaker 4: the accounting. Like if you're going to make a good
Speaker 4: living in this industry, We're not Grandma, right, We're not
Speaker 4: paper ledger anymore. To make a good living, we have
Speaker 4: to the best way to do it is to value
Speaker 4: price or services. So i'd come to y'all and say,
Speaker 4: Jen and Jill, I'll be your bookkeeper. It's gonna be
Speaker 4: five hundred dollars a month. I don't want to charge
Speaker 4: by the hour because then I'm gonna go and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna rock my tech stack and I'm gonna be able
Speaker 4: to do the work quickly that would take y'all hours
Speaker 4: and hours and hours to do. I'm gonna be able
Speaker 4: to do it fast because I've invested in learning. You
Speaker 4: know integrations, and you know how to how to do
Speaker 4: stuff quickly. I can set up rules in the software
Speaker 4: that do the work, do some of the work for me.
Speaker 4: Then y'all are wowed. My clients are wowed because I
Speaker 4: provide them what I it needed. But then I'm able
Speaker 4: to go get more and more clients because I'm not
Speaker 4: having to do the slow work that Grandma used to
Speaker 4: do on pen and paper. So tech curious is a
Speaker 4: good way to describe that, because there's so many apps
Speaker 4: coming out y'all that help us do our job, but
Speaker 4: you can't be scared of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: That was going to be one of my questions with
Speaker 3: the Someone might think, oh, I'm very detail oriented. I
Speaker 3: love working with numbers. But if you aren't comfortable learning
Speaker 3: a new software and the clicking around, that could seem
Speaker 3: to me like a barrier to entry into this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I love tech curious. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be like it, like coding lover, but just open
Speaker 1: to learning new tech. That's awesome. My mom is a
Speaker 1: bookkeeper and yeah, and she like has to take some
Speaker 1: quick books classes every so often to learn even the
Speaker 1: new same software, new features sort of thing.
Speaker 4: That's a great point. Like, so I am a QuickBooks
Speaker 4: pro advisor. I don't really serve clients and QuickBooks anymore.
Speaker 4: I've chosen a different general Ledger, but I still keep
Speaker 4: my quick book sirt because I kind of it's the
Speaker 4: big It's the big gorilla in America. Like it's the
Speaker 4: it's the most common software, so most bookkeepers are familiar
Speaker 4: with it if they haven't built their business on it.
Speaker 4: But every June thirtieth, I have to get resertified before
Speaker 4: June thirtieth. And it's like panic if you think you
Speaker 4: might lose your credential because then the test is so
Speaker 4: much harder. The research is easy, or it's only three
Speaker 4: three little like short exams. Actually this year it was
Speaker 4: just two short exams, but the full sert is like
Speaker 4: ten quizzes. It takes days to do, and so you're like,
Speaker 4: never will I lose that that I only want to
Speaker 4: have to resertify and I just had to do that.
Speaker 4: And it's important because the software changes so much in
Speaker 4: a year. Those developers are just like they're building this
Speaker 4: and that, and it's like what that used to be
Speaker 4: on the left, now it's on the right.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, job creation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for somebody who thinks they want to get into bookkeeping,
Speaker 1: either working for a company or maybe doing freelance, where
Speaker 1: do you go to learn how to become a bookkeeper?
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk about that question first, Like should you
Speaker 1: choose a software to learn? Is it general, like what
Speaker 1: does the learning process look like starting out?
Speaker 4: I got lots of thoughts on this. So there's free
Speaker 4: accounting fundamentals resources. There's paid accounting fund like you can
Speaker 4: there's a website called Accounting coach dot com. It's my
Speaker 4: favorite thing to recommend that is like accounting one oh one,
Speaker 4: And you can even buy like the flash cards if
Speaker 4: you want to, Like we're talking like school, y'all, And
Speaker 4: it's free and you can pay for tests. And with entrepreneurship,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of confidence issues and sometimes like if
Speaker 4: you can pass a test, you might just like confidence
Speaker 4: will explode because you won't. It'll help you be a signal
Speaker 4: to you because you know, I'm looking over my shoulder
Speaker 4: and there's no one here but me, Like who's telling
Speaker 4: me if I know what I'm doing? Right? So, so
Speaker 4: Accounting Coach does have tests you can pay for, but
Speaker 4: there's all sorts of like just free those kinds of
Speaker 4: free resources. Now for the entrepreneurship, there are a lot
Speaker 4: of ways to teach you how to become an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: There are a ton of bookkeeping like become a bookkeeper courses.
Speaker 4: Some are better than others. I have thoughts about that,
Speaker 4: if anyone, if we want to go in that direction,
Speaker 4: but generally I like it to be someone who's actually
Speaker 4: run a bookkeeping business. And for me, I like it
Speaker 4: to not be a membership style because I think every
Speaker 4: one of us is going to continue to have questions,
Speaker 4: and so I like, I'd rather pay an all in
Speaker 4: price for my course knowing that I'm always in and
Speaker 4: I can always get the support I've I've started to
Speaker 4: sway away from monthly like training that also then requires
Speaker 4: me to pay infinitely for months, you know, even if
Speaker 4: it's a small fee, because like I'm gonna have a
Speaker 4: question three years from now that I still need help
Speaker 4: with h And then for the software, like I recommend
Speaker 4: I'm using fresh Books, but and feel free to come
Speaker 4: and use fresh Books with me. I'm not trying to
Speaker 4: discourage people. It's just a much smaller market, so I'm
Speaker 4: trying to like I'm trying to play the niche play,
Speaker 4: But I recommend people get certified in quick Books Online
Speaker 4: and in zero. Those are the two largest General Ledger
Speaker 4: cloud based General Ledger, and you want to be cloud
Speaker 4: based so that way you can move wherever you want.
Speaker 4: We can go on our sabbaticals and still keep our
Speaker 4: clients or what you know, pick the RV, trip around
Speaker 4: the be cloud based and quick books and zero both
Speaker 4: have free certifications on their software, and that's going to
Speaker 4: be a great way for you. It's it's basically their
Speaker 4: teaching tool of how to get people brought up to
Speaker 4: speed quickly on their software. And if you do both
Speaker 4: of those programs, you can do one depending on your background,
Speaker 4: like if you've got zero background, it's going to be longer,
Speaker 4: but you can do them in a week or so,
Speaker 4: and then I think you'll learn which software you like best,
Speaker 4: and then I suggest you pick one. You're not going
Speaker 4: to be good at either if you are using both,
Speaker 4: but you can become an expert if you really like
Speaker 4: make yourself wrestle and like and like. And it's hard
Speaker 4: because someone's gonna come to you and say, hey, well
Speaker 4: you do my books in this other software, and you're like,
Speaker 4: but I'm trying to only take clients in this one.
Speaker 4: And if you can say no, there'll be another one,
Speaker 4: you know, a couple weeks later, a month later, and
Speaker 4: you'll be glad that you're not splitting your time into
Speaker 4: general ledgers.
Speaker 3: And then you just described you can kind of know
Speaker 3: what your style is in a week. What would you
Speaker 3: say would be overall kind of time investment maybe even
Speaker 3: cost investment for feeling ready for your first client.
Speaker 4: Oh man. It really just depends on the background you have.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of people come at this because they've
Speaker 4: been in accounting, Like you're in corporate finances. You've done
Speaker 4: accounting for one company, and maybe it's a big, big
Speaker 4: company you know two thousand people and you're in the
Speaker 4: accounting department. That person's gonna move more quickly. But they
Speaker 4: might not have ever worked in QuickBooks online or zero.
Speaker 4: They're using some huge ERP system and so they might
Speaker 4: just need to learn a technical software and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know in my software this is how I made
Speaker 4: an invoice, and in QuickBooks this is how I make
Speaker 4: an invoice. Because it's all parallel, we're only all we're
Speaker 4: all doing the same things. We're creating invoices, recording expenses,
Speaker 4: getting reports ready. Everyone can do that, So you just
Speaker 4: have to figure out like what's more intuitive to you.
Speaker 4: It's just a matter of like how the software was
Speaker 4: built than maybe how your brain thinks. So the time,
Speaker 4: it's hard to say I truly think like it's longer
Speaker 4: than you think, like like I would say it's it's
Speaker 4: it's probably if you've never done small business bookkeeping, like
Speaker 4: you're looking at months before. I think that you're ready,
Speaker 4: But then everyone always says, like, you know, take take
Speaker 4: your first I don't know, I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 4: the best, I'm not the I encourage you to get started,
Speaker 4: but it's such a serious business, you know. I guess
Speaker 4: that's my point. I don't want people to say I can.
Speaker 4: I've never done accounting and I'm going to handle someone's
Speaker 4: books in a week, like, please don't, because it's their
Speaker 4: it's their livelihood, and that that's how they feed their families.
Speaker 4: And you can really mess things up fast inside of
Speaker 4: a book keeping offtware if you know what you're doing
Speaker 4: for cost. You know the course that I took to
Speaker 4: get started five years ago, and I have an MBA,
Speaker 4: so I had some accounting background that had some entrepreneurship
Speaker 4: like training sort of, although my MBA was like ten
Speaker 4: years old whenever I started to do this, so it's
Speaker 4: not like it was fresh. I wasn't fresh out of school.
Speaker 4: But that course that I take, I think is it's
Speaker 4: about two thousand dollars. Some courses cost more than that.
Speaker 4: That's really I think the maxiinum needs to pay. I
Speaker 4: think there's a lot of good courses at that price point.
Speaker 4: There's plenty of people trying to sell them for higher
Speaker 4: than that though, and I just kind of am like, oh, man,
Speaker 4: I don't know why unless you just really resonate with
Speaker 4: those instructors. Yeah, I think you have. I think there's
Speaker 4: a lot of courses at about the two thousand dollars
Speaker 4: price point that have like everything you would need to
Speaker 4: be a bookkeeping entrepreneur. That's for the entrepreneur path. They'll
Speaker 4: teach you. They'll teach you the book keeping stuff, and
Speaker 4: teach you the engagement letter and paw to make proposals
Speaker 4: and how to price and all the soft.
Speaker 3: Stuff, right because you're gonna be a book keeper for
Speaker 3: your own self.
Speaker 2: Then in that brass yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good distinction. Can Some people are like,
Speaker 1: why do I need to pay for a two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars course if I can get the certification for free?
Speaker 1: But that's really where the value is. Like, yes, you can,
Speaker 1: you can and should find free ways to learn get
Speaker 1: your certifications. But if there are soft skills that you're
Speaker 1: not going to find for free online. That's where you do.
Speaker 1: You find those in these courses. So yes, I think
Speaker 1: if you want to be you know, working for into
Speaker 1: it or something, maybe not, but like if you want
Speaker 1: to be taking freelance clients like you're doing Kate, then
Speaker 1: a lot of value in that and you can mention
Speaker 1: the course that you took and recommend if you want.
Speaker 4: So. I took a course called Bookkeeper Launch. I also
Speaker 4: run a community called the Bookkeeping side of the community,
Speaker 4: and I have, like I have resources that like other
Speaker 4: other programs too. I that course changed my life. I
Speaker 4: will I will say that, but I think that was
Speaker 4: five years ago, and there have there are hand there
Speaker 4: are a handful of other courses that are honestly equally
Speaker 4: as good. And I love my instructor. I just was
Speaker 4: at his conference, like literally, that's what yesterday. I was
Speaker 4: at the conference for his students, six hundred people. I
Speaker 4: love it. But I'd be disingenuous if I didn't say
Speaker 4: that there you know, there's other equally good fits. And
Speaker 4: so what I say is find the instructor that resonates
Speaker 4: with you, because you're gonna want to quit. And so
Speaker 4: who is it that's gonna make you open your computer
Speaker 4: at five in the morning when you're getting up before
Speaker 4: your kids, or or at ten o'clock at night after
Speaker 4: you've put everyone to bed because you're doing this hard
Speaker 4: thing of starting a business and learning a new skill.
Speaker 4: Who's face do you want to see teaching you the
Speaker 4: things you need to learn? That's like way more important?
Speaker 4: And who has a team to like when you say
Speaker 4: you're When you say you're gonna stop that, they're like, no,
Speaker 4: come back, keep going. Here's your next step because you're
Speaker 4: gonna feel that for sure.
Speaker 3: Oh that's helpful. So let's say somebody did the thing.
Speaker 3: They took the months, they feel confident, they burn the
Speaker 3: midnight oil, and they want to start looking for clients.
Speaker 3: Where would you recommend someone begin? Are there some niche
Speaker 3: businesses that you've seen might be more prime for the
Speaker 3: pumping you?
Speaker 2: What are you seeing?
Speaker 4: The more you know accounting, the more you're gonna know
Speaker 4: how hard accounting is for different types of businesses. So
Speaker 4: like you might think, oh, I've I own a home,
Speaker 4: I can do that means I know real estate like
Speaker 4: no real estate super super hard accounting e comm or
Speaker 4: super super hard accounting. You're like, I bought of Amazon,
Speaker 4: maybe I can do e comm Like no. So the
Speaker 4: more you know accounting, the more you're gonna know how
Speaker 4: hard the businesses are to serve. Service based businesses are
Speaker 4: the easiest. They're gonna pay less because their needs are
Speaker 4: not as great, like they could maybe even do their
Speaker 4: own bookkeeping. Right. So, and the thing about a niche,
Speaker 4: most everyone I've talked to, and I've been doing this
Speaker 4: for a while and I have a big network in
Speaker 4: this community, people say the riches are in the niches,
Speaker 4: But everyone who has a good niche says, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: have picked this niche when I started, Like it's like
Speaker 4: it's like you fall into it. And so I really
Speaker 4: encourage you to get a handful of clients because you
Speaker 4: might think, like, oh, I love good food, maybe I'll
Speaker 4: do restaurants, and then you're like, no, restaurant bookkeeping is
Speaker 4: a is miserable. It's super super hard.
Speaker 2: It's not the same as eating the good food.
Speaker 4: It's not the same as eating So taking a few
Speaker 4: clients before you niche, I think is probably the wisest
Speaker 4: before you you know, don't hire the copywriter to make
Speaker 4: yourself the website for the being the painter's bookkeeper, like
Speaker 4: all this stuff, and then you're like, well, it turns
Speaker 4: out I really liked chiropractors, So don't niche too early.
Speaker 4: But I think getting your first client is the gold mine.
Speaker 4: Is like people that you know, and not your best friend,
Speaker 4: not your family. I'm just saying, like someone you interact with.
Speaker 4: Like I got my first client at a networking session
Speaker 4: locally in Virginia Beach when I was living in Virginia Beach.
Speaker 4: My second client was a dad in the kid pickup
Speaker 4: line at school. We were like standing in the lobby
Speaker 4: and just chatting, and he lost his bookkeeper and needed
Speaker 4: a new one. I hadn't really ever talked to that
Speaker 4: guy at all, Like his kid's way older than mine,
Speaker 4: but there was still like sort of a personal connection.
Speaker 4: So if you tell everyone that you're a good bookkeeper,
Speaker 4: I think that's probably the best way to do it.
Speaker 4: I don't think you should spend money on ads at
Speaker 4: first or anything like that. Look like, if you tell
Speaker 4: one hundred people you're a bookkeeper, you'll probably get a client.
Speaker 4: I love that hundred people you know, one hundred people
Speaker 4: you know that you're a client or that your cousin knows,
Speaker 4: like not not further than that, not further than that away. Okay, well,
Speaker 4: and I love it.
Speaker 3: You can do this online so it doesn't have to
Speaker 3: necessarily be in the school pickup line. It can be
Speaker 3: something that you put out on social media and be
Speaker 3: able to get clients from family who live in another state.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm, that's yes, and I don't. I didn't want
Speaker 4: that's that's a good catch. Thanks for correcting that. I
Speaker 4: did get my first two clients locally in my town.
Speaker 4: I served them virtually, which that's important. Draw that line
Speaker 4: in the sand from the very beginning. Don't go to
Speaker 4: anyone's office and pick up papers from them. There are
Speaker 4: tools that do all of that now, like never touch
Speaker 4: a receipt, the receipts will come to you in an
Speaker 4: app like that's that. That's how to do it. So
Speaker 4: I served them virtually. But you're right, like your your
Speaker 4: existing network is what I'm talking about, and it doesn't
Speaker 4: have to be like in your actual neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how much time would you say when you do
Speaker 3: have clients that each client might take you per week.
Speaker 4: Super varying. I take on small, low requirements clients because
Speaker 4: for me. I deliberately don't want a client that like
Speaker 4: needs me. I don't even want a client that needs
Speaker 4: me every week, y'all. That's just something you can make
Speaker 4: a lot more money if you take clients who need
Speaker 4: you weekly. But so I'm doing smaller more like monthly
Speaker 4: cycle bookkeeping, and as long as I get them done
Speaker 4: within the month, that's fine. And so it's like on
Speaker 4: my own schedule and then we meet and have a debrief.
Speaker 4: But so I really am tackling the small guys. But
Speaker 4: it's like it's there's so many services you can provide,
Speaker 4: and with with sales, you'll learn that, like if you
Speaker 4: can get more money from an existing customer, that's usually
Speaker 4: better than going and finding a new customer. So if
Speaker 4: you start small and then you're like, hey can I
Speaker 4: pay Can I help pay pay your bills for you?
Speaker 4: That's an add on service. Hey can I run payroll
Speaker 4: for you? You've been doing that and you're not stressing
Speaker 4: you out. I can do that for you. I can
Speaker 4: make your invoices for you. I can do receipt management
Speaker 4: for you. All those are more and more time, right,
Speaker 4: and I don't do a lot of those additional add
Speaker 4: on services I know people who make a good living
Speaker 4: serving a handful of large clients and then a lot
Speaker 4: of small clients. So it's just really variable. If anyone
Speaker 4: tries to tell you that there's an answer to that question,
Speaker 4: they're lying.
Speaker 1: Okay, oh my gosh, I love it. I love how
Speaker 1: honest you are. It's like what everyone's thinking, but nobody's
Speaker 1: saying thank you.
Speaker 4: Well, because you're gonna get served ads. Everyone who probably
Speaker 4: watches this podcast is gonna end up getting served an
Speaker 4: ad from coaches who are going to say, like by
Speaker 4: five hours a week, one hundred grand. It's like probably not.
Speaker 1: After like emailing and researching for this interview, have started
Speaker 1: to get ads. Oh yeah, I've already I've already started.
Speaker 1: So yeah, good, good looking out.
Speaker 3: It is good to know because, especially for those who
Speaker 3: are wanting to approach this as a quote unquote side
Speaker 3: hust so that maybe always remains a side hustle or
Speaker 3: turns into a business, it's helpful to know that there's
Speaker 3: a range of the types of clients, how much time
Speaker 3: they're going to take, that you could find clients, like
Speaker 3: just hearing you say those in the service field might
Speaker 3: take less time. That can be helpful to know when
Speaker 3: you are initially looking for clients and deciding how much
Speaker 3: time do I even have to give to something and
Speaker 3: what is the general need? How often are people going
Speaker 3: to want to be reaching me? So your honesty in
Speaker 3: that and kind of laying out the reality that there's
Speaker 3: a spectrum is helpful to know and even deciding because
Speaker 3: if I only have five hours a week to give,
Speaker 3: then this may not be my side hustle so well.
Speaker 4: And I want to say, like for me, if you
Speaker 4: the courses nowadays, most courses nowadays are going to tell
Speaker 4: you what it's called value pricing, and so we're not going
Speaker 4: to track our time. I mean, you can track it
Speaker 4: internally for yourself, but you don't. Ideally you're not till
Speaker 4: your client how much time you work. And the reason
Speaker 4: is is because we're supposed to get faster. Is because
Speaker 4: the first month is slow and clunky. But then we
Speaker 4: set up bank rulls in the bookkeeping software. The software
Speaker 4: gets trained, y'all like the software, and then more and
Speaker 4: more so it's going to get trained. And so the
Speaker 4: more we work in the books like things are going
Speaker 4: to go faster. And then we're like, oh, I can
Speaker 4: buy a ten dollars. Add on app and do that
Speaker 4: thing that's taken me an hour only ten It only
Speaker 4: takes ten minutes and it's only ten bucks. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: that's worth it. And so you make more money over time,
Speaker 4: even with less clients. That's the goal. That's the goal.
Speaker 4: Because I've gotten better at serving you. I know exactly
Speaker 4: how your invoices are laid out, so I can do
Speaker 4: ten invoices in the amount of time it used to
Speaker 4: take me to do two. Or I invest in technology
Speaker 4: to help me, you know, zap some stuff around, and
Speaker 4: then your effective hourly rate goes up. Your effective hourly
Speaker 4: rate goes up, even though your client doesn't know anything
Speaker 4: about the concept of an hour of how much you're
Speaker 4: making per hour. So that's another reason why if you
Speaker 4: need a lot of money tomorrow, it's not as good
Speaker 4: of a job. But if you can get a five
Speaker 4: hundred dollars client, hopefully in a year from now, you've
Speaker 4: raised your price because of inflation, like everyone should be
Speaker 4: raised in their prices anyway, on a regular clip of
Speaker 4: some sort, and you're working less like that's that's the goal.
Speaker 4: That's the ideal scenario.
Speaker 3: I love that scenario. I love that ideal scenario. You
Speaker 3: know what else? I love That is usually a secret
Speaker 3: to all of our listeners until they've listened for a
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 1: So ideal the bill of the week. That's right, It's
Speaker 1: time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe
Speaker 1: a baby was born and his name is Williams.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died
Speaker 2: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 4: That bill.
Speaker 1: Butffalo Bill, Bill Clinton.
Speaker 4: This is the bill of the week, Kate.
Speaker 1: Every week we invite our listeners our guests to share
Speaker 1: with us their favorite bill for the week, and we
Speaker 1: are excited to hear yours.
Speaker 4: All right, I'm excited to share. So we're a military family,
Speaker 4: so my Bill of the week has to do with
Speaker 4: the bill for entertaining your family if you are at
Speaker 4: all affiliated with the military, y'all. I am for many years,
Speaker 4: my whole marriage, but I have kind of we haven't
Speaker 4: taken advantage of a lot that the military offers. But
Speaker 4: we are living on base right now, temporarily in our
Speaker 4: new duty station, and there is so much that they offer.
Speaker 4: And so my bill of the week is figuring out,
Speaker 4: Like we went paddleboarding we've gone bowling. There's a movie
Speaker 4: theater with like the new list movies, like the newest
Speaker 4: movies for super cheap. And so if you are at
Speaker 4: all affiliated with a military or have a military friend,
Speaker 4: can get you on base. You can go rent a
Speaker 4: paddle board for five bucks. If you're in for Orth
Speaker 4: where I am, every base is different. You can rent
Speaker 4: r v's, you can it's The office is called the
Speaker 4: Morale MWR Morale, Welfare and Recreation Office, and you can
Speaker 4: get their Their job is to keep sailors and soldiers,
Speaker 4: you know, entertained and you know, morale up and take
Speaker 4: advantage of it, because we hadn't for a long time.
Speaker 4: And so my bill of the week is take advantage
Speaker 4: of the MWR morale and increase your family's morale for
Speaker 4: very low amounts of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so fun. I had no idea something like
Speaker 1: that existed. So I'm super glad a that it does exist,
Speaker 1: and b that more people are going to take advantage
Speaker 1: of it now.
Speaker 4: I hope. So go go every if you live near
Speaker 4: a base, look at look at the list of stuff
Speaker 4: that they offer, and go camping.
Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah, I love that that that can be available
Speaker 3: to even friends and family of those in the military,
Speaker 3: not just those serving. That's great.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: Well, if you all listening have a bill that you
Speaker 3: want to submit it has to do with living on
Speaker 3: a military base and the things that are available.
Speaker 2: To you, or anything else bill related. You know, we
Speaker 2: like to keep it big.
Speaker 3: Visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill.
Speaker 2: Leave us your bill. We're just arms wide open over here,
Speaker 2: ready and waiting.
Speaker 1: Maybe your commander's name is Bill. Just send them on
Speaker 1: over send.
Speaker 6: Send them to gents, just to leave a bill of
Speaker 6: a week. And now it's time for the lightning round,
Speaker 6: all right.
Speaker 1: So today in our lightning round, we want to know
Speaker 1: what's the most unexpected did expense you've discovered when going
Speaker 1: through your business or personal transactions or or Kate, if
Speaker 1: you have a hilarious one that you can disclose, but
Speaker 1: or anything interesting unexpected unexpected.
Speaker 4: I guess I'm just gonna be nerdy bookkeeper here. Before
Speaker 4: I started my business, I didn't know how much transaction
Speaker 4: fees were, so that has been unexpected, and I have
Speaker 4: been working in my business to try to, like as
Speaker 4: I get paid, reduce transaction fees all that. But it's
Speaker 4: just it's just sang hard to like, like, I guess
Speaker 4: banks want their money and payment processors want their money.
Speaker 4: But before I was a business owner, I didn't know that.
Speaker 4: And it's a it's a not insignificant line item on
Speaker 4: people's profit you know, business owners profit and law statements
Speaker 4: what we have, but we have to pay to get paid.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. That was new to me and as an
Speaker 4: entrepreneur a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: So yeah, fun fact. We you might know that. It
Speaker 1: So as far as valuations of companies, like on the
Speaker 1: stock exchange, it might come as no surprise that SpaceX
Speaker 1: is the highest valuation. The second highest valuation for a
Speaker 1: company is Stripe. Yeah, it's fifty billion dollars. It's because
Speaker 1: all those transaction fees. So fun fun little fact.
Speaker 4: I think I've heard that their CEO like almost kind
Speaker 4: of is like a little bit like like embarrassed about that,
Speaker 4: and like I think he tries to really terrible because
Speaker 4: it's like really like I'm just helping people move money.
Speaker 4: That's like all I do. And I'm like we make
Speaker 4: money hand over fists. There's a lot of like pushback
Speaker 4: about how are you so wealthy? Like because you're helping
Speaker 4: small little guy, right, Like you're taking all that is
Speaker 4: from like the tiniest little guy who's like the food
Speaker 4: truck man and making stripe guy rich.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but Stripe is better than PayPal. I will,
Speaker 1: I will pay transaction fees there over PayPal any day.
Speaker 4: So if you use PayPal, your books are wrong people.
Speaker 4: So I just that's the worst. No, you get charged
Speaker 4: extra if you come to me with a PayPal account
Speaker 4: and you because it's hard.
Speaker 1: Well good, I'm glad we don't use PayPal. That's fantastic
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: Yah, doing one thing right today?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about you?
Speaker 3: Jen?
Speaker 2: What's your answer?
Speaker 1: So we do our own bookkeeping for frugal friends quote
Speaker 1: unquote book yeah, quote unquote keeping. Oh god, I hate
Speaker 1: your I am. When you were talking about the entrepreneur
Speaker 1: that hates bookkeeping, it's like she's talking about me. She's
Speaker 1: talking about me. You have to be quiet.
Speaker 4: Quit talking about me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But so I in bookkeeping back in October I
Speaker 1: or no, it was it was in January and October
Speaker 1: I had canceled this membership that we had had this monthly.
Speaker 1: It was a I had paid annually in October, like
Speaker 1: the prior October, so I canceled that and it was fine,
Speaker 1: nothing weird. And then January they charged me for another
Speaker 1: full year. Like I hadn't even bought the membership in January.
Speaker 1: Nothing had happened in January with that place, but they
Speaker 1: charged me for a full year in January, and I
Speaker 1: had to go back in there and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I canceled this in October. I had the receipts and
Speaker 1: the emails of where they said it was okay. They
Speaker 1: did not charge me in October. I canceled in enough
Speaker 1: time with the terms and conditions. For some reason, they
Speaker 1: just randomly charged me like a thousand dollars in January
Speaker 1: or something. It wasn't a thousand dollars, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I had to get that company.
Speaker 4: They need a bookkeeper too, Yeah, yeah, I imagine they do.
Speaker 3: Is that the tapering that would be like a bookkeeper's
Speaker 3: responsibility to also be ensuring that these things that were
Speaker 3: canceled are not being charged again or who would that
Speaker 3: fall on if you were paying a book keeper.
Speaker 4: So like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't fight the battle for
Speaker 4: my clients, but there are bookkeepers that would like just
Speaker 4: it just depends on what level of service you're getting
Speaker 4: from them. I would say that's becoming more of like
Speaker 4: a controller, like getting close to like having like an
Speaker 4: in house like full accounting person, where I'm more like
Speaker 4: a compliance person, so like I'll make sure that your
Speaker 4: reports are ready for tax time. But that's all deliberate.
Speaker 4: Come to my Facebook group and y'all can learn about
Speaker 4: like different ways to do on entrepreneurial bookkeeping. Some people
Speaker 4: do love to be like the full in house person
Speaker 4: do all the extra controller work. You know, So that
Speaker 4: bill that got charged extra was a fluke, but someone
Speaker 4: who has a bookkeeper is going to maybe even notice
Speaker 4: that faster. And so the bookkeeper is going to say,
Speaker 4: you know this has always comeing in October. I don't know,
Speaker 4: like did you read buy this again? Especially if we
Speaker 4: report on like variant says like you know your education
Speaker 4: you know, we agreed that you were y'all were going
Speaker 4: to try to cut education agory this year. That was
Speaker 4: one of your goals, but then you went and blew
Speaker 4: a grand like what's going on? Gals. So that's the
Speaker 4: kind of conversations a bookkeeper would have, and then you'd
Speaker 4: have to decide like Okay, I got to go send
Speaker 4: the email and like for me, I wouldn't be the
Speaker 4: one trying to get the refund for my clients, but
Speaker 4: some bookkeepers would would do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's helpful. There's so many different things, like
Speaker 3: all the different words you've been using, like the controller,
Speaker 3: the compliance or the actual bikekeeping or they cannot.
Speaker 1: Know what a controller was, And I still don't fully
Speaker 1: know what a controller is, but I know it's a
Speaker 1: position that I had that somebody held at the last
Speaker 1: company I worked for.
Speaker 2: They were the controller of the company. Could you imagine
Speaker 2: was very cool at home with them? Looks like she
Speaker 2: seemed like a controller.
Speaker 4: Do you know what my title?
Speaker 2: Boss?
Speaker 4: Accountant?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: If that were mind title, though, I would be milk
Speaker 2: and you would.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would be really hard to get. You can
Speaker 4: give yourself that title, y'all are the boss, right, just
Speaker 4: like you can tile yourself whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Co host controller.
Speaker 1: Okay, Jill, Well it's your turn.
Speaker 3: In my personal life, my unexpected expenses that I'm discovering
Speaker 3: is related to my own stupidity. I just feel like
Speaker 3: I am striking out just everywhere because of the fine
Speaker 3: print I've been telling you all my stories, Jen, like
Speaker 3: things are just costing me money.
Speaker 2: It feels like it's my fault. I don't think it is.
Speaker 2: I think it's these other people with their fine print.
Speaker 1: It's a cautionary tale to read the fine print your
Speaker 1: life is.
Speaker 3: And I read the fine print and I think I
Speaker 3: understand it. And then I've got so many stories of
Speaker 3: expenses that are just what am I going to choose?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm going to go with.
Speaker 3: I'm going to take a hard left turn and talk
Speaker 3: about the time when Eric and I had a renovations business.
Speaker 2: We did minor yeah, no, not minor.
Speaker 3: We residential like kitchens, baths, whatever for people. One of
Speaker 3: the unexpected expenses, since we're talking about entrepreneurialism side hustles
Speaker 3: or owning your own business, was the time that it
Speaker 3: took to shop for a customer that we often did
Speaker 3: not factor into our estimates. And I think that this
Speaker 3: happens in a lot of different types of businesses. Those
Speaker 3: additional time pieces that you're giving to a client that
Speaker 3: isn't necessarily the me installing the kitchen cabinets in the room,
Speaker 3: but me needing to go online and look for this
Speaker 3: or that or the dimensions or return something, and that
Speaker 3: just ate up so much of our time and profits
Speaker 3: by the end of the day, like our hourly wage
Speaker 3: became so minimal because the unexpected expense of our time
Speaker 3: to be doing some of these things that we just
Speaker 3: hadn't factored in. So I don't know if there's a
Speaker 3: if that like relates at all to book keeping, but
Speaker 3: I feel like the time that you put in to
Speaker 3: things that aren't necessarily like me inputting or doing the
Speaker 3: job that you technically hired me for, but these kind
Speaker 3: of like ancillary tasks I feel like always get forgotten.
Speaker 4: It totally relates to just entrepreneurship in general, like you
Speaker 4: want to reduce the amount of unpaid time you work.
Speaker 4: One way I've done that is no one works with
Speaker 4: me without getting me for two hours instead of one.
Speaker 4: So we don't work two hours at a time, but
Speaker 4: we do two one hour sessions when I'm training, because
Speaker 4: I was doing one out because some people were like, oh,
Speaker 4: I need you for an hour, and I'm like, it
Speaker 4: takes me ten minutes to first of all have the
Speaker 4: like the sales call, and then I'm gonna input you
Speaker 4: in my software to send you the invoice. Like all
Speaker 4: that's like unpaid time, right, or send you the send
Speaker 4: you an email back and forth because you have a question,
Speaker 4: we have to reschedule our time or whatever like, and
Speaker 4: so I'm like, okay, my my minimum engagement is two
Speaker 4: hours whenever I do training, just because of that, because
Speaker 4: of the fiddle. The fiddling. Yeah, and when you value
Speaker 4: price book keeping, you do, you do leave yourself open
Speaker 4: for a crushing your your hourly rate one month, like
Speaker 4: if something bad happens and you still have to deliver,
Speaker 4: like if an app gets disconnected or if an app
Speaker 4: duplicates things like client's not going to pay you to
Speaker 4: fix that because you said it costs you three fifty
Speaker 4: a month for your reports or five hundred a month
Speaker 4: for your reports, and you're like crud, Like sometimes it's
Speaker 4: not all unicorns. But the idea is that over time,
Speaker 4: like value pricing is better. But yeah, there's plenty of
Speaker 4: unpaid time and mistakes in pricing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Kate, thank you so much for all of your insight.
Speaker 1: Where can our listeners who are interested in bookkeeping as
Speaker 1: a side hustle get more from you?
Speaker 4: Specifically? For the last year, I've put most of my
Speaker 4: heart and soul into my newsletter. It comes. Let every
Speaker 4: other Saturday, and you don't even have to give up
Speaker 4: an email to get it, because I'm anti email marketing
Speaker 4: a little bit. So you can go to Bookkeeping side
Speaker 4: Hustle dot substack dot com and in there you can
Speaker 4: read the archive since I've moved to substack, which was
Speaker 4: about a year ago, and that's where I just I've
Speaker 4: really put my heart and soul. I'd build in public
Speaker 4: on that newsletter and then I provide a whole lot
Speaker 4: of just what I think is useful in the last
Speaker 4: two weeks, and you'll get linked to like all the
Speaker 4: other stuff I do, like my Facebook group. You'll get
Speaker 4: linked to the videos I make on a YouTube channel
Speaker 4: that week. And it's kind of my host and my
Speaker 4: hub and where it's where my heart is right now.
Speaker 4: So bookkeepingside Hustle dot substack dot com.
Speaker 1: Cool, awesome. And what was the name of your Facebook group?
Speaker 4: I think if you just search Bookkeeping side Hustle group
Speaker 4: in Facebook, you will it. It will come up. It's
Speaker 4: got like I finally paid someone to like make a
Speaker 4: little logo. It's like blue and orange I think, with
Speaker 4: the white background and it's got. I don't know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of a big groups. If you see it. I
Speaker 4: think it might be over twenty thousand members now, So
Speaker 4: that's the one that I run. But you can get
Speaker 4: to that easily if you go to the newsletter. I
Speaker 4: always put like the most interesting, the most interesting conversations,
Speaker 4: and so when you click on a conversation, if you're
Speaker 4: not in the group, and you'll get it, I have
Speaker 4: to ask to join.
Speaker 3: Perfect awesome, thank you, Kay, it's been wonderful. I've learned
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was this was great. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 4: I'm a big I came to bookkeeping as a side
Speaker 4: hustle because I was interested in personal finance and helping
Speaker 4: my family's personal finances. And I know that's where y'all's
Speaker 4: heart is. And so if it's not bookkeeping, it's something
Speaker 4: else that y'all are going to teach. So I hope
Speaker 4: people you're like, oh man, that book keeping stuff sounds terrible.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna listen to the next episode. And that's totally fine.
Speaker 2: But you were honest.
Speaker 3: Even if it sounds, you got I love a genuine conversation.
Speaker 1: They really are good for them, good for them.
Speaker 3: Yes, welp, I don't think I'm gonna leave you for bookkeeping.
Speaker 3: But oh thank god, if I ever did, I think
Speaker 3: I would want to learn it from Kate. I said
Speaker 3: that to her after we stopped recording, But she the
Speaker 3: way that she talks about it delivers it. I just
Speaker 3: feel like I trust her and I love that when
Speaker 3: it comes to learning from somebody getting the tools and tricks.
Speaker 1: So yeah, she's not selling you on anything. She is
Speaker 1: telling you and telling you if it's not right for
Speaker 1: you too, which we're huge fans of, Like we don't
Speaker 1: think Frugal Friends is right for everyone, and we want
Speaker 1: people to know, like, if you're not a fan of
Speaker 1: like girls talking to each other, then it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be for you because we can't there's so many things
Speaker 1: we can't change about that in a short time span.
Speaker 1: So I love like Kate's aude around all of this,
Speaker 1: And so we hope that you got a lot from
Speaker 1: this episode if you're interested in side Hustles and so
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. We personally have a membership
Speaker 1: and we love to include our listeners who are paying
Speaker 1: off debt into this community where we're doing monthly challenges,
Speaker 1: we do ad free interviews, we have courses, all kinds
Speaker 1: of things to help you on your journey, and we
Speaker 1: want to congratulate one of our members for a big win.
Speaker 1: Jacqueline m. She says, at the end of last year,
Speaker 1: I vowed to not buy any new or used in
Speaker 1: quotation marks or maybe those are asterisks clothing in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. So far, so good. I have plenty, and
Speaker 1: even buying used clothing that you don't really need takes
Speaker 1: up money, time and resources. I have nice rewards, nothing
Speaker 1: over one hundred and fifty by the way, no yachts
Speaker 1: or jets I tried, oh, tied to each debt payoff
Speaker 1: and saving school. I have to keep me motivated, so
Speaker 1: her external motivation rewards. I've heard you shouldn't tie buying
Speaker 1: material things to trying to curb buying material things, and
Speaker 1: I get that, but I find that it keeps me
Speaker 1: focused and motivated. Maybe someday I won't need to think
Speaker 1: that way, but right now it helps. I actually disagree.
Speaker 1: I think your rewards should be as closely related to
Speaker 1: the thing you're giving up as possible, so just in
Speaker 1: a healthy like, as close as possible.
Speaker 3: Not take Tony over here, Jacqueline, this is amazing, and
Speaker 3: I can't believe that you're halfway through the year on
Speaker 3: hitting this goal of not buying anything, and I feel
Speaker 3: like I hear people say, oh, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: buy any new clothing, but then the shortcut loophole is
Speaker 3: use clothing, and you can feel way better about that.
Speaker 3: But if you're still just buying things that you don't need,
Speaker 3: that you're right. It's still always of money, time, resources.
Speaker 3: So I personally am very impressed and well done and
Speaker 3: hope that you feel good about the accomplishments that you're
Speaker 3: making and your finances but also life, because I think
Speaker 3: these types of things prove to us what we're capable of,
Speaker 3: maybe when we thought that we weren't so well done.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. If you want to check out
Speaker 1: our membership where we have all kinds of goodies to
Speaker 1: help our members, then head to Frugal Friends podcast dot
Speaker 1: com slash club to check out everything we offer and
Speaker 1: see if it's right for you, because it's not right
Speaker 1: for everyone.
Speaker 2: See you next time.
Speaker 1: Frugal Friends is produced by.
Speaker 2: Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 3: Okay Jen, Yes you want to hear my most recent
Speaker 3: personal stupidity, Yes, where I'm failing and just like can't
Speaker 3: be trusted with anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would believe more that you can't be trusted
Speaker 1: versus your failing, so let me have it.
Speaker 3: It really does feel like I used to be very
Speaker 3: on top of things and understanding of fine print, and
Speaker 3: suddenly it just all feels to be going to crap.
Speaker 1: Or there's another fine print story.
Speaker 3: Yes, or I have been successful at like fighting something
Speaker 3: in the fine print and that hasn't been happening either. Okay,
Speaker 3: here it is. Eric and I are going to San
Speaker 3: Diego in a couple of months for a wedding across
Speaker 3: the border down into Tijuana area, so we're going to
Speaker 3: be both in California and in Mexico for part of
Speaker 3: the time. I don't want to be a burden or
Speaker 3: expect other people to be picking us up and driving
Speaker 3: us all around. I think we're going to want to
Speaker 3: be going a lot of different places. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to rent a car, so finally find a
Speaker 3: car for a reasonable price. About to pull the trigger
Speaker 3: and looking into okay, well will I be able to
Speaker 3: cross the border in this car? Thinking it's San Diego,
Speaker 3: people are constantly crossing the border into Mexico. I would
Speaker 3: imagine that given that location, it will probably be allowed.
Speaker 3: In the fine print, it does say just as a
Speaker 3: general statement for the entire rental company, not location specific,
Speaker 3: that there are some places that have geographic specific restrictions.
Speaker 3: So I'm thinking, Okay, maybe that's the case, but given
Speaker 3: their location and how much of a tourist thing this
Speaker 3: is to cross the border, It's most likely not the case.
Speaker 3: But if it is, I'll just cancel it.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: It does say fifty dollars, like, if.
Speaker 3: You cancel before forty eight hours, they are going to
Speaker 3: charge you fifty dollars, Like it's not an entire refund
Speaker 3: on this car rental. I just wanted to pull the trigger.
Speaker 3: This is my bad, this is me, this is me
Speaker 3: not doing what I should have done. But I'm thinking
Speaker 3: it's not explicit and here they're not stating what their
Speaker 3: policies are. They've just given the general statement. So I'm
Speaker 3: going to book it and then and then give them
Speaker 3: a call and see, you.
Speaker 2: Know what what the delio is.
Speaker 3: And the delio was that they absolutely do not let
Speaker 3: you take their car over the border into Mexico, and
Speaker 3: in fact, there are no car rental companies that they
Speaker 3: know of in San Diego that would you allow you
Speaker 3: to cross the border into Mexico. So I'm like, then
Speaker 3: there's no point in me having this car. I'm going
Speaker 3: to cancel it, charge me fifty dollars. I get on
Speaker 3: phone with them, saying, hey, your policies weren't explicitly written.
Speaker 3: I'd like to not be charged the fifty dollars cancelation fee.
Speaker 3: This isn't going to work for my rental needs. And
Speaker 3: they're like, no, because we had it written that some
Speaker 3: geographic restrictions apply that applies to this, we're still charging
Speaker 3: you the fifty.
Speaker 1: Dollars call first, call, second, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know what my barrier was in that moment.
Speaker 3: I think I just felt like, oh this this is
Speaker 3: going to time out, like I have to book it
Speaker 3: now to be able to get this price.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I felt like I get to wait till the booking
Speaker 3: was secured before I called.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. Looking back, I don't know why.
Speaker 3: It felt like there was a beer at the time,
Speaker 3: and now all I can do is chocolate up to
Speaker 3: my stupidity costing me fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: And not gonna lie a ton of time.
Speaker 3: I probably spent two hours on the phone and on
Speaker 3: chat trying to get them to get like, not charge
Speaker 3: me the fifty dollars fee. I even called my credit
Speaker 3: card company to be like, well you spot me because
Speaker 3: these people won't. And they're like, nad not if it's
Speaker 3: written in the policies. I'm like, it was hardly written
Speaker 3: in the policies, hardly.
Speaker 1: That's legal ease, it's hardly written. That's so it's vague,
Speaker 1: so they can, yeah, get around it. You know what,
Speaker 1: You're just going to walk across the border with the
Speaker 1: rest of you know, of the people who hasn't who
Speaker 1: hasn't walked across the border to t you want it right,
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 2: And actually it is just sister.
Speaker 3: It does take forever to try and cross in a car,
Speaker 3: so it'll probably be better.
Speaker 4: In the end.
Speaker 3: I'll say, I'll earn back my fifty dollars in the
Speaker 3: time I save.
Speaker 2: By not cross.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I just got there just by talking
Speaker 3: to you just now, Jen, Thanks for listening, Thanks for
Speaker 3: letting me event anytime.