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