You trying to get a sponsorship from Dunkin Donuts? I end every episode with a question from the person I'm talking to. And your question was, was there anything that brought me joy so far this year? Hi everyone. And welcome to the thing we never talk about. My name is Tim Iseler. I'm a certified financial planner and I run my own independent financial advisory business in Durham NC.
But before that, I spent 18 years in the music industry working as an audio engineer in both recording studios and touring with bands. And this is a podcast about personal finance for weirdos. that? This show, like my business, is for people who chose their professional paths based on following a passion or a dream.
And that includes artists, musicians, authors, podcasters, roadies, and really anyone who decided to turn a skill or a talent into a career rather than pursue more conventional cookie cutter careers. And no shade on cookie cutters. The world needs cookies. But it also needs weirdos, and those people need ways to talk and learn about the most forbidden topic of them all. Money.
The Thing We Never Talk About aims to bring some of those ideas and conversations into a public space to help people who feel out of step with the mainstream make better decisions with their money. And everyone says to do this, so I'll say it too. Please like and subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. Today, I'm very happy to be talking with one of my oldest friends, Ivo Gasparotto.
Ivo is a software designer who recently decided to work for himself in a freelance capacity after many years of being employed by companies in the traditional way. I met Ivo when I was 18 years old and we were roommates for two years when we both moved to Chicago in the early 2000s. And we've remained close friends ever since. I'm really happy to share this conversation with you. So Without further ado, here we go. All right, Ivo. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, man. So I want to start with this question, which is, what do you tell people you do for a living?
I usually just say, I'm a designer. And then I say, I design software.
You design software. Great. if anybody wants more information, what do you, like, if somebody's really like, Seems to get it. What do you tell them? How do you dive deeper?
I'll oftentimes say. Or a lot of times I'll follow up with a question like, Oh, do you, do you code? Do you, are you like a coder? And I'm like, no, I don't write code. What I do do is I work with the business people to understand what needs to be done. And then I translate that visually into some sort of kind of blueprint of what the software should do and how it should look. And then I work with the developers who actually code it.
So I'm kind of the person in the middle that takes the ideas, makes it a real, and then works with the folks that actually build it.
So you're very much involved with the, the creative aesthetic of whatever the finished product will
Yeah, that's part of it for sure. Yeah. Visual. but then also, we're focused a lot on interaction too. So, you know, what happens when they click the button? Not just what color is the button, but what actually happens if I click the button and the software, what happens next and what does that look like? And how do I know it's coming? And, you know, navigation, like where am I in the application? Things like that is like a big consideration
So are you, are you sort of designing those user flow charts, if that's the right word for it, or user experience flow?
Yeah, that's part of it. That's like one part of it. That might be at the beginning of the design process where we're kind of trying to get an understanding of what the software is gonna be like, what the experience is gonna be like. So oftentimes it's good to kind of have that sort of flow of actions that are gonna happen in the application and the things that should be there for them to click on or Or for, for them to read. so a flow is usually a good, a good starting point.
I think usually then we'll take it into like, you know, kind of screens, like what might, what might be on a screen? What does the user need? What kind of information do they need? What choices do they need to make? I think, you know, it's a good example of like, interaction based software is an ATM machine. So it's a, it's a pure transaction, right? Like you put information in and you get something out. Right.
And that process is a cycle of like me making a selection and the, the software or the ATM machine giving me feedback and all of that loops and results in me getting my money. Right. Right. So, so yeah, that's a good example of kind of that idea of interaction
Time. I met you when I was 18. aNd we went to school together. And when I met you, you were an art student studying graphic design. and then we moved to Chicago together, and we were working different kinds of jobs. And I know, I know that from firsthand experience that you were working some temp jobs that ultimately were not that fulfilling. When do you feel like you got your first job? That was like, I'm doing my thing. Like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
I mean, it'd be easy to say like my first job in publishing, like the first job in Chicago after those temp jobs, was at a publishing company and I was designing books, educational textbooks. So I could talk, I'll talk a little bit about that, but, I don't know that that was the time when I would have said, okay, I'm doing what I should be doing.
Like, this is what I, And maybe this is kind of a weak answer, but I think it's actually just recently that I've discovered like, Oh, Now I'm doing, I think, what I should be doing or what I should have been doing all along. And maybe that's just a sense of like, you know, hindsight is 2020 or whatever, but, yeah, I think I have been the most fulfilled in my work, this past year than I probably have been in the past. At least the most recent 10 years of my career.
So, but, and I think that's probably just a natural process of like all the jobs leading up. I learned different things that I'm now applying today that makes the work more fulfilling. it makes the menial tasks faster and easier and almost like based on intuition. So spend more time on the creative tasks. Right. So, I think the thing about the first job that I always go back to though, is the way that I worked with other people. as a designer.
And so what that was like was we were designing, middle school textbooks. I, I primarily worked on science books, which was pretty fun. It's pretty cool. And we would work, we would really partner closely with editors, like science editors. And a lot of them were, were previous teachers, science teachers. There were fun people to work with in general, and they just had like a wealth of knowledge.
And so a big part of my job, I talked about kind of being that middle person between like the business entity and the software development team. Well, in that case, it was sort of, they had all of the information in their brain and I needed to create a graphic. Usually it was like an information graphic, I kind of displayed a basic principle of science and the kids had to learn it and we needed to teach it visually.
So how do I take the Ideas out of their head and construct something visually in a, in that someone else can, can learn from. Right. So that process of like understanding and then making something visual that can be shared and talked about, and then refining that visual idea into something that can be, you know, put out into the world for other people. That is fundamental. In what I do every day.
would you say that's still fundamental that, that in, and in that example, I'm going to use that example of the textbooks, but I guess we can probably apply it to today. How much of it is like, or how much of it was the editors saying, we need a graphic to go with this, you know, conveying this information to go with this paragraph and how much of it was like you actually having to look at the material, like the source material and saying like, this would be a good graphic to go with this.
It was probably equal, right? They, they would be, so they would be writing the chapter. And they would say, I think we, well, we definitely need visuals for this, this, and this. And I think these might be good areas, but oftentimes I would look at the text and I would come to those meetings and being like, yes, but also this chunk of text that is a bunch of bullet points.
We could make a cool visual that, that shows a, a transformation, you know, like, and these could be like three different dinosaurs in different stages, you know, like, Oh yeah. Okay. So it was a back and forth. It really was. today though, it's different.
Because the context in which I'm designing is very different, which is like an enterprise, in most cases, enterprise scale companies and, you know, software solutions, for all, all different types of measuring and reporting and, and optimizing and making things efficient. And so a lot of times the folks that I'm working with on the business side of things, think very much. in, in maybe, within their domains.
Okay.
And so pulling kind of create, create, like they're not coming to the table with the creative ideas
Okay.
because that's not part of their role. Right. That's. And so that's, so I'm much more listening, learning, processing information, and then coming to the table with the visualization. And then it's a matter of like. Getting the back and forth. Like, does this resonate with you? Is this in the right order? Like, how should we talk about this? They helped me refine it. So it's slightly different process, I suppose,
cool I want to stick with the the early days for a minute and then we'll jump forward to the present So when you got that first job with that publishing house, how were you thinking about money at that time?
That's an awesome one. I was probably, I was only thinking about the money that I needed to honestly, to spend at the show that we're going to go to at the Empty Bottle that night. That's all I was thinking about as far as money is, how much is in my bank account? Is it enough to like, you know, buy some food before the show? You know? So, that was probably my concept of money. very short, short term, narrow focus. I think it was probably around that time when I started running up debt too.
not like, not like crazy debt, but I was, Oh, funny thing is that I didn't get a credit card until I started at that job at the publishing company because they're like, we need to go on a press check. So we're going to go on the road, you know, just. catalog your expenses, put it all on the credit card and then we'll pay you back. And I'm like, I don't have a credit card. Like, wait a minute, you're like a 90, like a 20 year old person and you don't have a credit card.
So I discovered debt at that time. so that was new to me.
How'd you do with it? Did you do all right with it?
I mean, I was never out of control. I never got, I never got myself into a hole. Like I think a lot of young people do or did at that time, especially. but you know, we were adults living on our own trying to figure it out. But, yeah, so the first, that first concept, Oh, another funny part of that, is that when I, when I got the job, when I. I got the job offer. they're like, well, how, how much are you looking to make? I don't remember what I said, but I said something.
The hiring manager was like, I think we could do better than that. That experience in my career since then. But, so that's where my mind was at. Right. I didn't know, I didn't know anything about the world. eSpecially finance.
Yeah, I was very, very similar. Like I was working, full time at a recording studio called Soma Electronic Music Studios, and I was working part time at NPR. So I was working seven days a week and NPR paid really well. And it was like, I was on top of the world. Like I could buy records, I could go to shows and, you know, I was probably working seven, like full time, seven days a week, probably making like 30 grand or something like, you know, like a very, very small amount of money.
But I thought I was like crushing
Yeah. My wife always jokes about like how much I made that first year that we were together, that we met
So let's, let's zoom forward then. So you, you continued to have a series of, I mean, would it be fair to say a series of corporate jobs? Is that a fair
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Well, I had some time in advertising and like marketing, which was brief, but I wouldn't call that corporate necessarily. I did, but then I got into, marketing, but within the pharmaceutical industry, so that is very, that is very corporate and you know, the scale of that was, was large. So yeah, from that point, I mean, the majority of my career has been in that kind of kind of working in that context.
but then recently within the last few years, you decided that you were going to start working for yourself in a freelance capacity. Can you talk about what led to that decision?
Yeah. wow. That's a lot of things, honestly. I mean, you want the long version? Might as well, right? Yeah. So, it's an interesting, It's an interesting one. So, uh, let's see, even before the pandemic, the pandemic is always kind of my reference point in time now. But, prior to that, I was, I was working at,, a company that had been acquired by a much larger company. So I'm still in the enterprise, big company, big.
Corporations in that, at that time I was in a role, that was kind of middle management. Right. And I, when we merged, my boss bumped up to like a director level and then I went with her and so my responsibilities changed dramatically. and I found myself just in a pure like management role. I basically long stories. I was burnt out like I was entirely burnt out and I had a like a this was kind of the waking up moment. I think that started to shift.
I know this is a long, long journey, but, I had like a medical scare.
Oh,
on vacation where, I, I was like, we were at the beach and I, I, I was working that morning. Actually, I worked a couple hours in the morning on vacation. Right. Okay. and I was like, Oh, no big deal. I'll just work a couple hours in the morning. And I, I closed the laptop. I'm like, all right, I'll go meet the family at the beach. I walked down to the beach. We all sat down and we're just chatting. And I started feeling like all the color running out of my face. I started feeling tired.
So basically. my family thought I was having a heart attack. They called the ambulance. I got rushed to the hospital. I get there, they run a bunch of tests and everything like, we don't know what happened, your blood pressure dropped and this and that. And so I was like, geez, man, this is intense. Like what's going on. I ended up changing my doctor. My doctor says, what was going on?
With you right before and like during and and I'm like, well, I was finished work and then we were we're just chatting It's what were you talking about? Oh like medical scares. How does that make you feel bad? I don't like that kind of stuff.
It makes me feel like freaky and he's like and then your blood pressure dropped He's like I think you had a vasovagal event which is a vasovagal event is like your mind and your but your mind is telling your body to shut down and It's like a nervous system reaction, like, Hey, you like, there's danger, right?
yeah.
And, so. He was like, if you're dealing with a lot of stress, maybe you should talk to like, you know, this behavioral therapist I'll kind of skip ahead a little bit. But of kind of like self transformation, right? I mean that this is kind of an overplayed term, but like I, I, I started paying a lot more attention to, to everything. My health, my diet, my mental health.
My like, you know, like getting into therapy, like, you know, all kinds of things and I started discovering like, I'm not happy with what I'm doing and like, what I'm doing professionally is hurting my, my wellbeing and I, I was just, and this, so this carried on through the pandemic. Right. I, I kind of. Lance glance over that. I kept working that job through the pandemic.
And by the end of all that and coming out of the pandemic and then we hired a bunch of people and we scaled up again and like it was just out of control, right? And I was Now looking back on it. I can say like I was honestly burnt out so bad from that job I needed to leave and it wasn't just that job. It was a series of jobs. Anyways that got me thinking like I don't know if I can be in these environments anymore, like corporate environment, things like that in the same capacity. Right.
So I needed to change. I took a, I took a job, with an old coworker and did that for a year and then was part of like a mass layoff when the tech industry started like laying everyone off. And I was like, all right, well, that's the kick in the pants. Right. I got to go solo and I had been doing kind of a, a lot of side gigs anyways. And so it was time, it was just kind of a kick in the pants. And, that's what led me here. it's kind of a long story, but I, I think the personal and professional.
It was tied and that's what got me here. It wasn't just like job shift, job change, job change. It was, you know, like fundamental change.
Yeah, of course. So how long have you been freelancing? A
about a year and a half, like
and a half. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. full time, on your own, hustling for jobs. what do you, what do you think like, what are like one or two of the best things and one or two of the hardest things?
Yes. The best thing is that I own my time and I'm flexible and I can be flexible. and that fits with like my, my lifestyle, my family and things like that. So, that's the number one and that's what really drove me wanting to be independent in the first place is to have, be flexible and have ownership over my time, I think that's the, that's the number one benefit, I think another benefit is, is, that I'm the only limitation to how much I can achieve. and, and especially financially too, right?
Like if I can take on more work, if I have more capacity, then I can scale myself. If I don't, I can scale back down. Like I'm in control of the capacity of my capacity. And if I want to expand the capacity, because I want to. Take on more client work. I can do that. and it kind of goes both ways, but that's, that's the other, that's, another benefit, I think.
Yeah. I want to ask her a question very directly related to that. So you have ownership of your time, you get to decide what your capacity is, but unlike, you know, your previous Working history. Now it's also up to you to decide how much you get paid or how much to charge people. So how do you think about that? Or, you know, just to start, like, how did you think about it when you started freelancing as your only thing? And then how do you think about it
That's a really good question. you know, I was, I, I have, well, I have to call out like my, my good friend, and partner in business quite often is, Daryl Dexter and he, he helped kind of Provide a lot of guidance to me through this process. So, like right off the bat, he was like, don't charge hourly because, because the type of work, I mean that hourly rates work just fine for a lot of, lot of, industries. Right. But for what I do, it can become a trap.
because the complexity of a certain project It tends to reveal itself, down, you know, through the project. And so, you know, you don't want us all of a sudden, like either quote, you know, an hourly rate and a number of hours, and then you either have to like extend that. It's just like makes for a, a, a, not a good conversation later. Right. If, if, if it's a more complex problem then, and, and so. That's the thing that I avoided right off the bat.
And I was kind of like guided towards that, you know, and so, so we kind of worked through a better way of estimating, work, which is through, you know, kind of. putting a process around the work, as, as opposed to like looking at it as just deliverables. and then we can kind of talk about phases of work. These are the types of things that are going to happen during this phase of work. These are the, this, the outcome of the work will be these things.
This is how you'll be able to use them for the good of your business. Right. So you can really like talk about it as like. A type of work that we're going to do and the results of that work during this period of time. And there's a cost associated to that type of work and that period of time. And so, and then we can kind of say like, and then beyond that, if you, you know, the next phase of work, if you, if you want to continue doing this, this.
Project and taking it to the next level then we can do these types of things and for this cost. So really kind of making it cut and dry a lot more cut and dry of what the client is getting and how our process aligns to what their business needs are. So, you know, if they're smaller, smaller client projects, I might consider the amount of hours it's going to take me as part of the job, but also like complexity or do I have the resources I need? Will I have to acquire new resources?
time spent getting up to speed on the, on the project and sort of, I like to think about things as project based. Or phased based, costs.
How often do you have to go back to someone and say, this is just, the complexity is more than we anticipated, you know, we need to talk, re talk about the money? Or do, or do you ever do that? Or like, do you just kind of put your head down and do it, and then the next time you quote a job, you just bump it up?
well it shouldn't, it doesn't come up because I think the frequency in which we're in communication with clients, Is, is very high. So, so they're, they're, they're in the know throughout the process. so we can kind of like flag it at any moment, right? Like this thing that we're talking about right now, what you're suggesting is probably going to increase the scope of the project. and just kind of calling it out.
And so the part of the design process is really, I, I, I prefer to meet with a client at least every week, if not multiple times during the week. Right. And part of that is me saying, here's what's been accomplished. And, I need these inputs from you to, to move forward. So it's like a constant kind of communication. And so it shouldn't, it shouldn't ever be a surprise to a client that like, Oh, we kind of hit a roadblock and it's taking us a while to get over it.
Like they're probably going to know that right away. And we're going to pull them in to help us. Move forward or or at least pull someone else in to help us if it's not the client, you know, so yeah, so it shouldn't, it should never be a surprise, I think.
How often, or how much do you rely on that back and forth as sort of an accountability? Partner for you because you know you have that meeting every week, you know, you got to get the work done every
Yeah. That's huge. you know, the, the, that's, it's probably by design to keep me, keep me within the guardrails because, you asked about like one of the biggest challenges of being independent is for me, it's, it's not necessarily like planning out my day or making sure I'm like touching every client project. Like that seems to be okay. I have. tools to manage that. It's how do I get motivated? And like, how do I get myself into the work when I need to do that?
and so oftentimes, like the accountability of like a client meeting. Like I have later on this afternoon, like, you know, spurred me to do some work this morning that is going to like, help me have a better meeting this afternoon. So it's, it definitely is an accountability, structure as well.
Yeah, I want to ask this is kind of a leading question. But so like when I started working for myself I heard a lot of the things about, you know, you got to do calendar blocking. You got to honor your calendar as whatever, as yourself or whatever it is. I don't know. And, and I found that, and I still like, I, I keep a calendar. I keep, right now I'm keeping a goal journal, which I find really, really useful to making sure I get certain things done.
And I find it's really, really easy to map out. The entire work day, but then after I'd been working for myself alone for a while, I found that what I had totally neglected is all of the time that you used to have, where it'd be like, Hey, I'm going to go get a cup of coffee, right? And. I found that like I need to, to include time to be like, no, I'm actually going to take a real lunch break. I'm not just going to eat my lunch and go straight back to my desk.
Have you had any experiences like that?
Yes. and I do have some things, so I also work from home. and I work entirely remotely with everyone that I work with is like through the, through this computer. And so I have to get out of here. Right. I like my, my office is in my basement, you know, it's like, it's nice, but like, you know, it's like, that's, it's a real, real problem.
So. I have a couple of things I do have like a rotation of different friends that also work remotely that I meet with for lunches and that like, yeah, and so every couple of weeks I do, I try to do it actually every week, doesn't always work out, but, at least every other week, I'm usually going to a restaurant to meet someone for lunch in person. so that's been great. I have a couple of scheduled.
calls with people like you and I have one, and then I have one, a couple with a couple of other people that it's not a work. It's like a, it's not like a break from work necessarily, but it's not work either. It's just sort of. A nice break in the day where I'm talking to someone that's interesting. And then we're talking about different things and it's like stimulating, right? Kind of gives me that, like a, a context shift in the day to kind of take me away from the work.
And then I come back in fresh. I have also taken on a side gate, which is walking a dog. It's my neighbor's dog. And so I walk Tucker, a couple of days a week and, make a little, side cash, but
little walking around money.
my comic book and coffee money. But, but yeah, I do. I schedule time for myself and I try to honor it. I try as much as possible.
Yeah, it's it's one of the hardest things for me it's and honestly the one of the hardest things for me is just shutting off my Thinking mind, you know Like I'll be cooking dinner and I'm like thinking about work and it's I've it's really hard when you work for yourself to have that Separation.
yeah, that is true. Yeah. There are like moments in the day where I need to like, Kind of force a break like oftentimes at my house around four o'clock everyone's coming home And so i've realized that like I need to take a break around that time anyways So I go upstairs and I say hi to everyone I spend some time And it's quality and, but it's not too much time, but it's a nice break in the day. but then I can always come back down here for another hour and get some more work done.
And that's good. And that's okay. And like, so I'm finding there's sometimes there's rhythms, there's like scheduling some flexibility. Like, I think I have like a, like a 30 minute block in my calendar today that just says. break. I anticipate I might want to take a break then. And if I don't, I just shift things around. I, I try to be, I'm not like so strict to my calendar. My calendar is the main thing that I use to organize my life.
And like it extends to, to, you know, my wife is also contributing to the calendar. I'm like, we have like, everything's on the calendar. It has to, or it doesn't really exist. Right. But for my work and for my personal stuff, I try to keep it as flexible as I can. I'm not like rigid to it.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. so you mentioned a minute ago that you you have ownership on your time. You get to decide how much work to take on. So aside from capacity, you know, limitations, how do you decide when to work or not? Or I guess you could think of it like that could be a capacity issue. Like when, when you decide you are going to turn down work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a good, problem to have. I, I think I've just recently. only just recently reached that point. and so I haven't, I haven't turned down work yet. but I think I have to, at this point, in time, you know, I'm, I'm not really good at telling people no, so I'm going to, I'm anticipating that's going to be a challenge, but how do I know that, was the question about more
Sort of like, you know, like you, you have your entire day, how do you decide when to work? Like you mentioned, you go upstairs and say hi to everyone around four, you could go back to work or you could just say, you know, break out the martini shaker, I'm done with
I'm done. In some days I definitely do, you know?
How do you make those decisions?
that's a good question. Well, a lot of it is now just pattern based and like routine based. and it, it really is, you know, one of the biggest differences with going, being independent is that I've made the choice that I'm. Like putting like family and non work time as a priority above work, like, and I'm also like, I have the privilege in my career to, at this point to be able to do that, right? Like I acknowledge that, but like, that's kind of the choice that I've made now.
And so work now fits in to places between the, the other stuff. So instance, like, like I make it a point to go. I'm going to be doing an exercise every morning, you know, chunk of time that I'm not working, but there's also a chunk of time between getting home from working out and the family waking up. Right. So that's an ideal work time. And I know now, like, I just, I just try to be more in tune with like.
My body and like, when I'm ready to work and like, I know that I'm more performant in the morning and I'm like sharper. And especially after I exercise, I'm like zeroed in. So if I can, like, if I use that hour of time, I am just like, I get so much work done. So I've zeroed in on these times. And then I like, there's also this time between when, when my wife gets home from work and like she goes, then she goes to work out. So like, we spend a little time together.
And then she's gone and then I'm like two hours. I'm just like, boom, like I have two hours. So it's kind of like it fits within the rhythms of life. That sounds so weird. But like, I think the instant I know like, like this past, this past week, I was forgoing the gym in the morning to do, because I had more work to do. And so that's like a red flag. That's like, no, you're not doing what you said you're going to do. So, you know, too much work.
Yeah. That makes sense. So when, when you had more traditional jobs or very traditional jobs, there's obviously a lot of structure that comes with it. Somebody tells you what they're going to pay you, but then also they tell you what the benefits are. Right? So now you don't have any of that stuff. How do you, how do you think about that? And we can just. You know stick to a couple easy ones like health care. How do you think about that and then like saving and investing? How do you think
Yeah. Great. Yes. healthcare. It is expensive, man.
Yeah
Yeah, that's how I think of it. I mean, it's just, I don't know how to be like, yeah, it's just, that's all it is. I mean, it's a, it's a very high cost when you're an independent person with a family. and, and I'll call out though, like the ACA is like, is fantastic. and, and from a software perspective and a, and a UX perspective, like it's like, it's like, it's a great process for. For finding and acquiring health insurance.
and the subsidies are, are good too, you know, especially if you're not, if you don't have an income to be able to pay for it, it's, you know, so I, I've been able to take advantage of that, which is, which is great. but it's still high cost, very high costs. So, you know, I, it's, I think. It's just, at least it's a known cost, right? Like I, like I can, I know that that's every month. That's what the premium is going to be, you know?
So, I mean, for us at least, like it always, I guess it depends. Like we're, we're very fortunate that our medical costs are like pretty, pretty consistent and like. Manageable most people that's not the case or a good portion of those society is not the case. Right. but it's still, yeah, it's just expensive. And so some of it, I guess I take that back. It's not all an unknown cost. There's a good portion of it. That's known that we can plan for.
but, but with, you know, high deductible plans and things like that, it's like, well, we're still shelling out
Yeah,
cash. And so, so yeah, I just think of that high cost, but, the investment part of being independent is good. if you're working with someone else to help, at least for me, like I, I, you know, I work with a financial, planner manager. And so, that was incredibly helpful for me to be able to leverage, The kind of the, the safety net that we had put been put that we had put in place and utilize some of that savings to get me to float me, while I got. Into being independent.
That was like priceless to be able to have a plan and say like, this is what we're going to like, this is our run rate or not run rate, burn rate, right? Like, this is like, this is my runway. I knew how much time I had before I had to secure work. So that kind of like.
Planning and structure like was, you know, priceless at that moment, but it also taught me that like if, if I have a certain amount kind of like set aside for us to live on, if necessary, then, and continue to invest like longer term too. So I have these like, kind of like different structures within, My, my, my finances, then, then I feel better. I just feel, I feel better. I know what I can do, what I can't do.
And I know that if something, it's easier than to take risk to with, with my business.
100%.
Because I know I have a safety net and I know what that is. And I know how long that will take me. And, and actually like, it almost makes me think like, how do I utilize that more in the future? Like how, you know, like as long as the market's doing good and I can continue to continue to put savings in, how could I leverage those? I, I think too often we think about like, Oh, I just save, save, save, save, save, save, save, save, then retire. And I'm going to use it all.
It's like, well, but you're living now,
Right. Yeah. It's, it's a great point. Like, you know? like some some accounts are dedicated retirement accounts. And if you take money out, you're going to get penalized and you're going to get hit with taxes. And so like, you know, Leave those alone, but then there's other investment accounts and certainly like cash savings accounts. Like even if your mentality is safe, safe, safe, safe, safe, like you're saving now so that you have more and better options in the future. Right.
And, and one of those options is certainly an emergency, like. Your car breaks, you need a new car. Like you're going to be happy of cash in the bank. But one of the, one of those other options is maybe there's a new career opportunity, or like you said, it lets you take more risk. And I think a lot of people don't think about saving or keeping. A savings, certain amount of money in savings as allowing for more risk, but that's what it does.
It's like, you have this, you have this, what's the word I'm looking for? Like a, like a support net, like a safety net. Like I can fall back on this if I have to. So therefore I can, you know, be a little bolder. Yeah.
And like being forced into that situation helped me learn that like, this is a mindset that you can, it's like a shift. And because, because when I was working corporate jobs, it was easy to just put, just focus on the 401k, you know, And, and then, you know, I was fortunate to like be in a company that was, was growing and, and doing well. And I saw some share, you know, some profit share in that. And that's like.
So corporate jobs and there are a lot of benefits from that, and like, that can help you grow, like those longterm investments for sure. A hundred percent. But like, I think, there's other, there's other, other ways to, to, to, to save money, I think. you know, so that's the thing. And then, you know, like, I think you can't like, you can't be independent and not think about like taxes.
Yeah.
And I'm trying to figure that out and that's not, it's not, it's not necessarily difficult, but it's also just, I kind of like, I need to, it's, it's the, the mindset shift is like, I'm not paying, I'm not, I'm not doing my taxes once a year.
Right.
Like, yes, I'm going to do it, but I'm going to do it more frequently also. Like I'm going to do, you know, like I'm, I'm kind of like pay the tax as I make the money. Right. Or potentially like invest that tax money and then pay the taxes after you, like, so there's, there's strategies there and I'm just trying to figure those out. so,, still have a lot to learn there.
Yeah, there's always more
Yeah.
let me ask you like what do you think or what do you wish other people either in your industry with your skill set or maybe like your your level of expertise What do you wish more people? Like you knew about money.
you know, I feel like it's so often drives career choices, when, when it doesn't have to, you know, oftentimes I think, you make career choices to go after more money, but sacrifice life things. and I guess I, I've been leery of that through my career, like I never moved, I never relocated to a place that I didn't want to live in for a job. I'm glad I didn't.
I think people do that all the time and I'm, I don't mean to judge, but I just kind of at the same time, like making choices based on that, like life choices based on, Going after the money. I don't know. I'm like leery about that. I wish more people and especially, I think in my, I should be more focused on my industry. Oh, this is especially one is like a lot of young designers, they work for free
Oh
like yeah. I think that's admirable. Like, Hey, your friend's band needs an album cover. That's a fun job for a
yeah. I,
Why not?
I think I gave you a few of those jobs. Yeah.
those jobs can drive your portfolio and can get you like great stuff. So I'm not, I'm not, I guess I would never advise a young person to like.
Never do free work because I think to help your community or to help like You know like a creative endeavor that you believe in or like any of those things I think put your art and your design and your creativity out in the world I don't want to like but you know also know when you're when you're valued when you're valued You know and and when your skills are valuable to people I think you know and having those conversations about money early and being just like And just being not awkward about
it eventually, like it'll be awkward, right? Like it's fine, but just to do it more frequently, you get more used to it. And I think, it becomes less of a, a barrier and more of like, you know, because you should get paid. We have specialized skills, you know, that are in need. And so, that's how the market works, you know, that's how, you know, and that's how we, how we survive.
and it doesn't have to be, you don't have to be making, you know, tons and tons of money, but you know, there's a value exchange. So you know, even if it's like whatever, a hundred bucks or something, I don't, whatever or gift card. I don't know. But like you need to like make sure that you're, you're valuing yourself and the work that you put out in the world. And then other people will value it too,
That's a, that's an excellent point. I 100 percent agree. I heard. I think I heard or maybe read an interview with Steve Albini, and he said basically the identical thing. Like, if you want to record your friend's band for free, go for it. Because they know that you're doing them a favor, and they know what it means. But if it's a stranger, all you're doing is saying my time is worthless.
Which is like nobody, not only is it like impossible to get ahead if people think your time is worthless, but nobody values worthless time.
Right. And, and then you're setting a really bad precedent for the rest of your industry too, because now that that person you gave you, you made them a corporate logo for 50 bucks. That's their expectation that that's what design costs.
From now on, everyone works for cheap.
And sometimes you do have to end up having a hard conversation with a friend. If it's like, Hey man, like I helped you do the website, but like, I can't keep doing this. I will say. Professionally, there are places where to think about your time and your effort and your skills as equity. There are, I'm, I'm exploring opportunities there. Like with people that I, I believe in something that they're creating, like, it's sort of like working with the band to do the flyers, right?
Like it like, Oh, this person has an awesome software solution and they're trying to bring it to market. And I could help them do that. I, it's worth me investing in their efforts with my, the work that I could provide to them. It's a slippery, can be a slippery slope, but if you manage it, I think it's like, it's, it can be like everyone kind of wins. Right. and, and if you can kind of structure the, the, the relationship correctly, then. Oh, ships rise, right. Or whatever the saying is.
and so that, that, that is, that's a professional decision to make. And I, I like offsetting my client work with, a venture that I'm like, I'm trying. I'm passionate about that. I can help grow. So there's, there's some, some, interesting ways to, to work with people, you know,
Yeah. So I think a lot of people, that I talked to, myself included have never. Or, or seldom had straight jobs. So just for like that kind of an audience, when you're saying that you're working for equity or you're, you're, you know, volunteering your time in exchange for equity, what do you mean by that?
that like, like I'm putting, effort in. With, an expectation to be included as the, the, the, the, the product grows and, and be part of the success of the product.
Yeah. So some kind of some kind of ownership stake in exchange, well, in place of.
right.
would have been cash compensation?
right. Yep. that's right.
What are one or two things that you think you do really well in your financial life?
Well First I have to give credit to my wife who Keeps us in line and has like, I've learned a lot about saving and, and you know, budgeting and managing money and, you know, from her. So, we always joke about when, when we first started dating, I had, I had a, a budget that included, fun time money. Which was like, like the higher, like it was a higher budget than like my, my bills at the time. She's like, what is this? I'm like, well, it's, you know, I buy records and stuff.
She's like that, you can't spend that much money every month on fun time stuff. Okay. So, so that's lesson learned. So we don't have like, you know, but, what do we do really well, I think. One thing is that we've, we maintain a small footprint on this earth. Like we've, we've, we got used to like when we were in Chicago, we got used to living small, living in apartments, not a lot of stuff. And I think one of the things when we moved to.
To, to Michigan was that, we didn't, we didn't feel like there's a lot of available space here in Michigan and there's a lot of homes that like, you know, have a lot of rooms and like, could be like a lot of spaces spread out. but we consciously decided that we didn't want a big house because we didn't, we didn't need it. And that's just kind of like how we thought about things. So we've kept the scope small on our living space. And then like maintenance is cheaper.
I mean, like, you know, like whenever we, if we go to renovate something, it's a smaller job, you know, heating, cooling costs are less like, so we just kind of, We learned to live with a little bit less, I think. And, so I think that goes with our vehicles and even like how, how we try to shop for food and things like that. So, I think we do that really well. And like, I look at my monthly spending and we're like super consistent.
and, and it doesn't make for us, this is what works for us, but like, we don't have a strict budget. Like monthly budget, like we never, we never operated that way where we're like, this is for groceries. This is for bills. This is for like, we just, we just never did it. And so I don't know how it works necessarily, but we kind of were very consistent, you know, like, so I think we do that. Well, like, I think spending is like, like, we're good about like controlling it.
And I think the other thing is managing debt, like as little debt as possible is how we try to, to operate. that's like the main thing now from a business perspective or from like, me personally, you know, I'm, I'm starting, I'm starting to put things in place. Like I'm starting to look at ways to maximize the money that I have on hand.
And so like, like investing that in shorter term ways, like just taking things like, like taking the money that I would put towards taxes and putting it in a high yield savings. You know, instead of, instead of just letting it sit in my bank, you know, so just kind of looking for ways to optimize, I'm getting better at that.
that's great. Those are great things I think. that small footprint also goes to, it makes it easier to have, a big safety net, you know, like if you're spending, if you need to spend 10, 000 a month, you need a really big safety net. But if you spend 5, 000 a month, you know, it's easier to get there. It's easier to recover if you, if something happens. So that's like an excellent, excellent,
Yeah.
qualities to have.
I think the consistent spending is, is sort of like, like a secret one because, it's very like it, like what, what it takes for us to live. It's like, it's, it's a constant. So when I had no job, no income coming in to then incrementally scale that income.
it made it very easy to know like how, like what my runway was going to look like, you know, because our consist, our spending was super consistent and like, we were able to like very quickly because we don't have a lot of expenses, like we were, we were able to like very quickly be like, Oh, we can eliminate like these three things, you know, like. I have Dunkin Donuts coffee now instead of, you know, like, fancy coffee,
mean, if you can call that living, I don't know.
It is kind of a sacrifice, but you know, it's fine. Dunkin Donuts is still pretty good, so.
I guess.
That's not, that's not me like, that's not a, a, a testimony
You trying to get a sponsorship from Dunkin Donuts? So I want to wrap it up here. I end every episode with a question from the person I'm talking to. Your question was an interesting one. I kind of You know, thought it would be a question about money, but this is great. And your question was, was there anything that brought me joy so far this year? And I assume you mean 2025 calendar year 25, which is still very new. I thought a lot about this.
I find as I get older, at least as I conceive of joy, the things that bring me joy are really. Ordinary everyday things like one very very consistent example is I get up super early every morning I get up at 5 a. m. And I like that and my sweetheart wakes up later and the dog sleeps in with her.
So every morning when the dog comes out of the bedroom, he makes a beeline for the side yard where he goes out to go to the bathroom and the determined look on his face every morning makes me so happy, like like he's, About to like, compete in the Olympics or something. Like he looks so determined and it makes me so happy. And so there's, it's stuff like that.
Like my dog brings me a ton of joy and not because of anything, just like, you know, there'll be moments of just like, so positive and happy about that. And then I do sometimes in strange ways, just get struck by like. I guess I don't know another way for it, like a real joie de vivre, where like, I'm just super happy and everything is really funny and it can be like something that doesn't make any sense. And I'll just start laughing out loud.
Like I have an idea and I just start laughing out loud about it. So the things that happen that I'm the most proud of. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm joyful about those I'm proud or satisfied or content or whatever. But I thought that was a good question.
Thanks.
about you? What has brought you joy this year?
Yeah. I mean, joy, joy is different. Joyful is, is a different thing. It's not, it's not necessarily pride. I suppose you could feel joy in pride, but, I really like what you're saying about the small moments. this, this won't be mine, but I want to share a story about the dog that I've been walking. he does provide me joy, surprisingly. Like I'm not a huge animal person. Like I don't want to own my own dog. Or a cat or any like pets like this and no pet rule right now in our lives.
But but he brings me joy but this is not necessarily just a quick story. So it's freezing cold outside salt everywhere. It's, it's not a very nice place for dogs to walk right now, but we got it. I got to take him out and he, his poor little paws. And if you're a dog owner, you probably know these things, but I'm learning. And he lifts his paw up and looks at it and then looks at me like, what the fuck, what the heck is going on here? Why is my paw like this?
And, and so I was like, I don't know what to do for you, buddy. And then his, his mom told me that. just to like gently like with your gloves. And so today I got to like his poor little paws. I was like, I'll help you buddy. And I got to help like warm up his paws and get the salt off there. And then we could continue our walk. And I felt good about that. you know, I, I liked the small things. I'll just. focus on today.
what brought me joy, it's kind of silly, but I finally got back to the gym today. It was 16 degrees this morning instead of negative six. So I decided like I can get out there and do it. And so there was definitely a moment in time, the snow was falling on my car and I was like, Oh God, do I want to go out there and do it? And I did. And so, yeah, I'm proud that I got myself out of the house, blah, blah, blah, beat the cold.
And I, but there's a moment where you, I, I walk out of the gym and I, even though it's like freezing cold and snowing, I feel like joy. I do feel joy, right? I feel like now I can accomplish it. Like I feel good. It's like that, like what you're saying, it's the joy. What is the French term? Joy, debris, joy debris.
of life.
I do sense that, you know, and that's a thing. So, I don't know, that's my, for today at least.
That seems like a great spot to end.
Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks for the time and conversation.
Yeah, buddy. I really enjoyed that conversation and I actually learned a lot about Ivo, including that credit card story, which actually happened while we were roommates. So it's kind of funny that I never heard it before. I can tell that I'm really going to have a lot of fun with this podcast and I want to thank you for listening. Thanks for being here. All right. Let's throw in some disclosures. The thing we never talk about is for educational and entertainment purposes only.
It's not legal investment or tax advice. Okay. People on the show, including yours truly may have interests for or against any investments discussed. So do yourself a favor and don't make any decisions based on what you hear. All right. If you have a money or finance question you'd like answered in a future episode, please drop me a line at Podcast at Iseler financial. com. Again, that's podcast at Iseler financial. com.
And Iseler is spelled of course, I S E L E R. If you like what you hear, please like, and subscribe to the show, wherever you get podcasts, and you can get my insights on money and more delivered directly to your inbox by subscribing to my keep it easy newsletter at financial. com slash newsletter. Thanks for listening. I really appreciate it. And I really appreciate you.