**Episode 2 of 4 in the Time & Income Series. To listen to Episode 1 in the series, go here. To read the transcript of Episode 1 in the series, go here.**

Finances are a tricky topic for any creative entrepreneur. Money talk is always difficult, even if your financial situation is pretty straightforward, but add in the complications that come with being a self-employed business owner, and things get really difficult really fast. Layer in the reluctance to focus on finances that is common among many creatives, and you have a recipe for disaster. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Today, we’re going to talk money, and we’re going to hopefully undo that complicated mess I just mentioned.

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Hello, thriving artists, and welcome to Episode 6 of the Starving Artist No More podcast. My name is Jennifer Jill Araya, and I’m so excited that you’re here with me. Today’s episode is a big one: finances. A lot of creatives really struggle with the money side of their business. Business money management is a really big topic, but it doesn’t have to be scary. You can do this.

This episode is part 2 of a 4-part series about how to handle the time vs income connection in creative businesses. If you didn’t listen to the first episode in the series, I highly recommend you listen back to episode #5 of this podcast before moving ahead here. That episode lays out a lot of the foundational mindset principles that will help you understand why it’s so important to have a good handle on your business finances.

Another resource that will be a big help to you in this process is a free guide on my website. Just go to my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com, and you can download a free guide titled “Say Goodbye to Feast or Famine: Three Financial Must-Haves for Creative Entrepreneurs.” This podcast series is loosely based on that guide, so it will be a huge help to you as you work to truly gain mastery over your business finances. Just go to www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com and fill out the contact form.

Ok, let’s dive on in. In the last episode, episode #5 of the podcast and the first episode in this time vs money series, we talked about why time and income are connected for creative entrepreneurs, and we went through a brief overview of three steps you can take to loosen that connection so you can increase your business income without working 24/7. Step 1 is to pay yourself first, so that your business finances become a well-managed resource and so that you feel like you have more income because your money is being used so efficiently. Then, for step 2, do the thought-work necessary to figure out where your creative and financial sweet spot is and focus all your efforts on getting more work within that sweet spot, so that you are both paid your absolute best rates for the work you do and doing your absolute best, most creative, and most innovative work on every project. And in step 3, with the extra time margin you have in your schedule, thanks to steps 1 and 2, use your creativity to develop asynchronous income streams that will pay you over time into the future.

That’s a brief overview of the full process. Today we’re going to be diving into the details of how you take that first step in the process: how, exactly, you pay yourself first. And I want to start with why you need to pay yourself first.

As I explained in the last episode, your business runs on your creative energy. That’s what being a creative entrepreneur means: your creative time and your creative investment create the products or services your business sells. Without you, your business doesn’t function. That makes you your business’s most important asset.

As a professional cellist, my cello is incredibly important to me. I take great care of my instrument. I store it in an expensive, protective case. I monitor the humidity where it’s stored so that the wood doesn’t dry out too much and crack. Before I play each time, I check over my instrument to make sure it’s in good condition, and when I’m finished, I wipe off the rosin dust and carefully stow it back in the case. My cello is important to me. My ability to perform as a cellist is dependent on my cello being in good working condition. So I do what is necessary to make sure it stays in that good working condition.

I’m sure you probably have a similar tool you use in your business that you take great care to protect. If you’re a photographer, perhaps it’s your camera or your lenses. For my audiobook narrator friends, maybe that’s your microphone or your recording booth. (I know I’m very careful and protective of my microphone.) If you’re a painter, perhaps it’s your favorite set of brushes. For dancers, perhaps it’s your pointe shoes. If you’re a seamstress, maybe it’s your sewing machine or your fabric scissors. Whatever it is that makes it possible for you to do the creative work that you do, whatever tool you use daily as part of creating your art, I know you take great care to keep that tool in good working order.

My question for you is this: do you do this for yourself? Do you take care of yourself? Those tools I was just talking about don’t do any good without you to operate them. My cello can’t perform a concert without me. You are infinitely more valuable than your tools. So, do you take great care of yourself, the same way that you take care of your tools? You are the most important asset of your business. Do you treat yourself like it?

My guess is, probably not. That’s what the awful “starving artist” stereotype is all about, right? The artist who sacrifices everything – including the ability to eat – for the sake of their art. “Forget my basic physical needs for food, shelter, and clothing. I have my ART.”

Except your art doesn’t exist – it isn’t ever brought into being – without you there to create it. And if you’re not taking care of your physical needs, you can’t live up to your full potential. If you’re tired or stressed or hungry, you aren’t your creative best. Your mind isn’t free to wander and to dream and to be as creative and innovative as you can be, because you’re worried about how your bills are going to be paid, or you’re rushing to get the work done because you have too many projects on your plate, or you don’t know how you’re going to pay for your next meal, let alone find the time to prepare it. Taking care of you means taking care of your art.

Taking care of your needs obviously has a huge financial component, and that is why it’s so vital that you manage your business money well. Business money management matters because you matter. Nothing happens without you. Nothing happens without your creativity and your vision. Your business exists because of your creative drive, and it exists to give you what you need – personally, creatively, and financially. One of your business’s jobs – one of its prime functions -- is to fulfill your financial needs.

So how do you do that? What does it mean to manage your business finances well? Let’s go through that, step by step, after two quick caveats.

First, I am not a tax professional. I know a lot about business money management thanks to my own experience as a creative entrepreneur, and I feel confident giving general advice, but the finer points of business taxes are not my area of expertise. Consulting a tax professional to get advice that is specific to your unique situation is always a good idea. 

And second, this episode has a lot of details and concepts that might be completely new to you. It may be difficult for you to absorb them with just one quick listen-through of this episode. I’m going to do my best to lay this out for you as simply as I can, but this stuff is complicated! If you need to see this in written form, rather than just hearing it in this podcast, you can always visit my blog, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/blog, where you can access the full transcript of every episode, including this one, as a blog post.

I also highly suggest that you read either (or both!) The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan and/or Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. If the money discussion completely overwhelms you and you have no idea where to start, The Money Book is the book for you. It lays everything out in a very straightforward, easy-to-understand way and is an excellent introduction to the topic of self-employed finances. It’s basically “small business money management 101” and is the perfect introduction if you’ve always been confused about money management in your business.

If you’ve already read The Money Book, or if you feel like you’re already up for a little something more than the basic introduction that The Money Book provides, then Profit First is for you. In my own personal journey as a creative entrepreneur, I read The Money Book years ago. In addition to the small business money management principles I had absorbed from my business-owner parents, the info in The Money Book guided my financial decisions for many years of my career as a creative entrepreneur. It helped me and my family become debt-free and made sure that I was staying on top of things like taxes and financial recordkeeping. But several years ago, when I began my concerted search for a better way to structure my creative business because what I was doing just wasn’t working, I read Profit First, and it was an epiphany. My reading and implementing the concepts in Profit First marked the actual turning point of how I managed my business finances.

I think Profit First can be a turning point for you too. Implementing the Profit First process in your business will be a game changer for what the money in your business feels like. Remember, a well-managed resource will go further. It will feel like you have more of that resource. And Profit First will give you the tools you need to manage your business finances well. The next two episodes in this podcast series give you steps to take to actually increase your income, but the step we’re talking about today, paying yourself first, will make it feel like you have more money as soon as you begin implementing it, because you will be managing the resource more efficiently. And, paying yourself first will make sure that when your income does start increasing, you are actually taking advantage of the additional opportunities and options a higher income makes possible, because you’ll be managing your money well. Like I said, paying yourself first is a game changer. It sets the stage for everything else.

Both The Money Book and Profit First are linked in the show notes. If you have questions beyond what I cover in this episode, either or both of those books will really help you.

Alright, let’s get into those details I keep promising to share. Your first step in managing your business finances well is to separate your business finances from your personal finances. Get a separate business bank account.

In order to manage your business money, you have to be able to keep track of that money. What business money is coming in, and where is it coming from? What business expenses are you incurring, and what are they for? If your business and your personal transactions are all mixed together in one bank account, it is a huge headache to figure this out. It’s so much more straightforward to have separate accounts, and as an added bonus, separate accounts will make tax time so much simpler! Split your business and your personal finances into separate accounts, and you’ll always know what money you have available for both types of transactions.

When you’re looking for a business bank account, you want to use a bank that has low or no fees for their business checking and savings accounts. They do exist! Sometimes, you have to use a smaller bank to find fee-free business accounts, but not always. My business accounts are at a major national bank, and I don’t pay fees for anything other than international wire transfers.

It’s a good idea to call around to several different banks and find out (1) what fee-free business account options they have, and (2) what paperwork is required to open a business account. Depending on where you live – which state or which country – the requirements to open your business account will vary.

In Ohio, where I live, to open a business bank account, you need to have all of your basic personal identification documents, plus a legal document showing the name of your business, and many banks will request that you use an FEIN, or Federal Employer Identification Number, rather than your Social Security Number. Again in Ohio, getting the legal document showing your business name is as simple as going on the Secretary of State’s website, checking that your desired business name is available, and filling in an online form for a “business name registration.” In some states, this is called a DBA, or “doing business as” name. It varies by state, but a quick google search for how to register a business in your area should tell you what you need. If you’re located in the United States, the second thing you will likely need to open a business bank account is an FEIN, Federal Employer Identification Number. And again, that’s as simple as going to the IRS’s website and filling out the form to apply for it online.

While those two things are probably required regardless of where you live, the requirements definitely vary. My suggestion is to call around to banks in your area. Find one that has fee-free business accounts available, and then ask them what you need to bring with you to open the account. That will let you know where to start in terms of making your business “official” in the eyes of the government and in the eyes of the bank. A quick google search for “registering a business in [whatever area you live in]” will also get you pointed in the right direction.

I’m going to take a quick moment to address a sidenote question that I get asked a LOT: what business structure is best? LLC, S Corp, C Corp, sole proprietor, etc. My answer to this question is probably not the one you want to hear: you need to talk to tax professional about your unique situation. There are simply too many variables that go into answering that question for me to be able to give ANY kind of blanket statement. Your situation is unique, and the laws in your state or territory play a HUGE role in determining what business structure is the best fit for you. You need to talk to a tax professional to determine which business structure best meets your needs. That isn’t a question I can answer.

The one blanket statement I can make is that if you don’t yet have a business bank account, and you’re not yet registered as a business, start with those two things. Register as a sole proprietor for now. Just get those starting steps done. You can always change your business structure later once you’ve had a chance to figure out your best option with a tax professional.

Once you’ve selected a bank for your business account that has low-fee or fee-free options, open at least two accounts: a checking account and a savings account. If you follow my full advice and use the Profit First method, you’ll have a lot more than two bank accounts. But as a baseline, starting with both a checking and a savings account is a great way to get the ball rolling. You can always open more accounts at the same bank later. Once you have those first two accounts set up, a checking and a savings account, use your business accounts ONLY for business transactions, and use your personal accounts ONLY for personal transactions. Never the twain shall meet!

When you have separate accounts for your business and personal finances, all sorts of things become much easier. You can now tell exactly how much money is coming into your business each month. You have an easy way to keep track of exactly how much money you are spending. Even if you do nothing else I recommend in this episode, just this clear separation between business and personal financial assets will do worlds of good in terms of helping your business money become a well-managed resource.

But, I encourage you not to stop there. Separating business and personal makes possible step 2 in this process: pay yourself a salary.

Paying yourself a salary is where “pay yourself first” comes from. Because you now know exactly how much money you have coming into your business, you are able to take a percentage of that to pay yourself a salary! Determine how much you will make as your salary – and I’ll go through how to do that in a minute – and then transfer that amount from your business account into your personal account each month, or every other week – whatever frequency works best for you. If you take the time to fully implement it, this one move will eliminate the feeling of the feast or famine from your work, because your business will be paying you the same amount every month. You won’t have to worry about how you’re going to pay your personal bills! Hooray!

Now, how do you pay yourself a salary? First, determine how much your salary should be. If your business income is $0-$250K a year, Mike Michalowicz, who wrote Profit First, suggests that your target should be a salary that is equal to 50% of your business income. That exact percentage will vary somewhat depending on your personal financial needs and on business factors like your cost of goods sold and contractor/employee expenses. But a good starting point is 50%, and I recommend that you don’t vary from it too far, at least not in your “goal” percentage.

And how do you know your business income? What are you taking that 50% from? You can figure out your business income by looking at your last year’s tax return. Assuming you’ve been in business more than a year, your last year’s tax return should reflect money you made in your business. Just pull out your copy of that return, and look at the form where you’ve entered your business information. In the US, and you’re filing as a sole proprietor, this is the Schedule C form, and your year’s entire business income will be entered on Line #7. Divide that by 2 to get half of your business income, and that is your target for how much to pay yourself annually as your salary. Divide that by 12 to get your target monthly salary amount.

Fully recognizing that this world is not an ideal world, here’s how this process would work in an ideal world. Every time money comes into your business, you’ll divide it in half. Half of it would go into the general fund from which you pay all of your business expenses, and the other half goes into a fund for “owners compensation.” You can set up this account as a separate business checking account, or you can think of it as a sinking fund, or you can set it up as a category in whatever budgeting software you use. Whatever works for you. But set aside half of everything that comes in, in a place that you won’t accidentally spend it on other stuff. That’s money that you get for being the owner of your business and for working in your business. Then, each month, transfer your salary amount out of that fund into your personal checking account. As everyone who has ever worked in a creative business knows, our business income is not consistent from month to month. Some months you’ll make more, and some months, you’ll make less. But your salary amount is a consistent amount, meaning that on really good months, when you’ve had lots of business income come in, your salary will actually be less than half of that month’s income. You’ll put the full amount, all 50%, into your owner’s compensation fund and you won’t touch it for other business expenses, but you’ll only transfer your salary amount to your personal account. On good months, when you make that transfer, there will be money left over in the owner’s compensation fund, and that extra money that you’ve not transferred over yet will act as your buffer against the famine months, when you make less than your normal amount. Because you’ll have accumulated a bit of an overflow from the feast months, when the famine months come, you’ll still have enough in your owner’s compensation fund to give yourself your normal salary.

If you implement this and stick to it, making sure that you never use money that should be owner’s compensation for something other than owner’s compensation, you will have effectively eliminated the feeling of feast or famine in your personal finances. Just as if you were working a regular 9-5 job employed by someone else, you will know exactly how much you have coming in each month to pay your personal bills. And the peace of mind that comes with that is incredible. It has the power to completely transform your emotional relationship with money, with your art, and with the business of your art.

But remember, I said that that was what it would be like in an ideal situation. It’s important to recognize that this “50% of your business income” figure is a target amount. It is going to be your goal to work toward that figure over time. I’m not advocating that you take this 50% amount as gospel and immediately start paying yourself that much every month! If you’re used to taking either a lot more or a lot less than this percentage every month for your personal expenses, jumping right into a 50% split will be a shock to the system. Instead, start TODAY by giving yourself whatever percentage you think your business can afford, even if that’s just 20% or 30% (or maybe even less!). Every month, work to (1) reduce your business expenses and (2) raise your business income (more on how to raise your income in the next two podcast episodes) so that (3) you can adjust your “pay yourself first” percentage and get closer to that sweet spot of 50%. Your first month, maybe you pay yourself just 20%, but the next month you up it to 23%, and you keep adjusting it every month until you get where you want to be. It may take a while to get there, but I know you can.

If you’re used to using all or almost all of your business income for your personal expenses, or, if you’re at the opposite end of the spectrum and are used to spending all or almost all of your business income on business expenses, this will feel really hard. And I want to acknowledge that paying yourself first, paying yourself a stable salary from month to month and setting that salary at an amount that is around 50% of your total business income, can be really hard for a lot of creatives. We often have to fight for fair compensation, and it can sometimes feel like all our business income goes hand to mouth: as soon as we get it in our hands, it goes straight to our essential personal expenses like food and rent and utilities, with nothing left over for paying business bills. Or, the opposite happens. For my maker creative entrepreneur listeners, if your creative industry is one that requires really expensive supplies – for example, maybe you’re a pottery artist and need to buy clay and pay for kiln time, or for fabric artists, man oh man is fabric expensive! – if your cost of goods sold, the cost of the materials you use to make your products, is really high, it probably feels like every penny you make goes right out the door again to pay for the supplies you need for your next project. I know that working your way toward a 50% goal is not going to be easy, but it is possible, if you take small, intentional steps to get there.

Again, start with the percentage you think your business can support. Work each month to both reduce your business expenses and to increase your business income (and as I mentioned, we’ll cover the increasing income piece in the next two episodes of this podcast), and gradually, over time, inch the percentage of your compensation closer to your 50% target goal. You can do this. It won’t be achieved with a single huge leap or a gigantic shock to your system, but you can do this.

Once you’ve got your owner’s compensation fund set up and are paying yourself a regular salary, and while you’re moving your salary percentage closer to that goal of 50%, the next big thing to think about is taxes. You know the saying, “nothing is certain except death and taxes.” (Sidenote: As I was prepping for this episode, I knew I was going to want to use that quote, so I looked it up just to make sure I got it right, and I learned that it is from Benjamin Franklin! Who knew?) Well, this quote is absolutely true. Regardless of where you live, if you own your own business, you will pay taxes. And if you don’t save for that tax bill, it will HURT come tax time.

But there’s a really simple solution. Just like you set up an owner’s compensation fund, and just like you set aside a certain percentage for that fund from every check that comes into your business, set up a tax fund. The one difference between the owner’s compensation fund and the tax fund is that gradually working your way up to the target percentage for the tax fund isn’t really an option. The government wants its money and will get its money, so diving right in to a realistic percentage for your taxes is almost a necessity. The percentage recommended by Mike Michalowicz for US-based business owners is that you set aside 15% of your business income for your taxes.

My one caveat with that figure is that 15% only accounts for federal taxes. If you live in a high tax state or city, you need to set aside a higher percentage! I live in Ohio, which is not a very high tax state, but I live in the City of Cincinnati, which does have somewhat high taxes for a Midwestern city. So 15% does not work for me! I actually set aside 24% of every check that comes in to pay for my tax bill. This is probably a little bit higher than I need – I almost always have money left in my tax fund after I pay my quarterly tax bill each quarter – but I would much rather be ahead on my tax savings than behind, so I don’t mind having a bit of cushion in that account.

If you’re not sure what figure to use, referring to your last year’s tax return is again the way to go, or alternatively, talking to your tax preparer. If you look at your tax return, take your total business income and figure out what percentage you paid in taxes – city, state, and federal, and if you’re in the US, don’t forget money you paid for the self-employment tax, money that goes to Social Security and Medicare. Once you know what percentage of your total business income you paid in taxes last year, that tells you how much you need to set aside out of every check that comes into your account. And whatever percentage that is, DO NOT TOUCH IT! You have to change your perspective on this money. In your head, do not think of this money as yours. It belongs to the government. That tax fund money is not yours.

Last year, I did a Business Finances for Audiobook Narrators workshop at an audiobook narrator retreat I attended, and as part of preparing for that workshop, I interviewed my parents. In case you missed my discussion of my parents’ work in episode 3, my parents are small business owners and have been since I was born. And their business is a small accounting firm that specializes in small business accounting. The wealth of knowledge they have about how to appropriately manage small business finances is absolutely incredible! So I interviewed them as part of my preparations for this workshop I was asked to give, and I asked them what the biggest mistake and the most common mistake are that they see small business owners making. And my mom told me that they’re actually the same mistake: both the biggest mistake small business owners make, and the most common mistake they make, is not paying their taxes.

When you don’t pay your taxes, you get hit with interest and penalties, and all of that compounds, meaning the “miracle of compound interest” works against you. In the US, tax debt does not go away with bankruptcy. You will get into so much trouble if you don’t pay your taxes.

And it is relatively simple to take the sting out of tax time. If you save for taxes as you go, if you set aside whatever percentage you need every time a payment comes into your business, tax time will transform into a non-event in your business life. It won’t be stressful anymore. You’ll know that you have the money set aside to pay your bill, and you don’t have to worry about. What an amazing feeling that will be. (From personal experience, I can tell you: it really is an amazing feeling.)

The last step I want to touch on in terms of paying yourself first has nothing to do with money but everything to do with your lived experience as a creative business owner. Paying yourself first isn’t just a financial concept: it is a life concept. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Time is money.” For us creative entrepreneurs, that saying is more than just an interesting concept: it is reality. Because what we are selling is our creative energy, our time is literally equal to our business’s income, our money. And I would challenge you to pay yourself first in both money, what we’ve been talking about for this entire episode so far, and in time.

You are not a machine. All work and no play really does make you, the artist, a dull human being. You cannot work all the time. You cannot create to sell every second of every day. Unless you take time to refresh your wells of creativity, those creative wells will run dry. Pay yourself first in your time.

What that looks like for you in practical terms is something only you can determine. What do you need time to do in your personal life? What do you need to grow and mature as an artist, and what time do you need to devote to that process?

In 2020, I was part of an audiobook narrator retreat led by Andi Arndt, who is an incredible audiobook narrator and audiobook coach, and whom I admire immensely. As part of the retreat, she shared this personal mantra with us: “Every day, I will make time to prepare and enjoy healthy food, and I will make time for exercise, hydration, rest, and play.” Every day, I will make time to prepare and enjoy healthy food, and I will make time for exercise, hydration, rest, and play. This mantra struck me so deeply when Andi shared it that I wrote it down, and it became my own personal rallying cry.

I don’t achieve this ideal every day. Some days, in fact, are really far from this ideal. But it is always what I am striving for. It hit me so profoundly that I made an “adult coloring book” version of the saying, printed out and colored about 10 copies of it, and hung it around my office and recording space, and taped it into my bullet journal. I’ll put a link to a pdf copy of this coloring page in the show notes in case you want to download it for yourself. My little coloring page isn’t anything incredible from an artistic perspective – I am not a visual artist or a graphic designer – but when I see it, it is enough to make me pause and prompt me to ask myself: am I taking care of myself today? Am I making sure that my creative well is full and healthy? Am I paying myself first, not just in my money, but in my time? Am I taking care of my business’s most important asset? Am I paying myself first?

I challenge you to ask yourself those same questions. Are you taking care of yourself? Are you making sure that your creative well is full and healthy? Are you paying yourself first, not just in your money, but also with your time? Are you taking care of your business’s most important asset? If your answer is “no,” or “not really,” or “maybe?”, I challenge you to make one change this week, starting today, to move the needle closer to yes. Maybe that looks like meditating or praying each morning or each evening. Maybe that looks like going on a walk over your lunch break. Maybe it means actually taking a lunch break. Maybe it means scheduling a date night with your spouse or significant other or your best friend so you can be replenished and renewed by the meaningful relationships in your life. Whatever will help you move toward personal wellness and wholeness, take a step in that direction. It is absolutely the right direction for your business.

And that’s it. That’s the basic outline of how to pay yourself first. (Step 1) Set up your business bank accounts. Get your business registered as a legal business in your country, city, or state, and separate your business and your personal finances so that your business finances become a well-managed resource. Then (Step 2) pay yourself a salary so that you know how much money you have coming in for personal expenses every month. That salary should be as close to 50% of your total business income as you can get it, but if you’re not there yet, don’t stress over it! Just start with a percentage that works for you right now and gradually work your way closer to that ideal of 50% coming your way as owner’s compensation. This will mean that any feast or famine in your business will no longer impact your personal finances, and wow, what an incredible place that is to be as a business owner! Next, (Step 3) Set aside money for taxes every time money comes into your business bank account so that the tax bill will never be a surprise or a pain point for you again. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, (Step 4) make sure you are paying yourself first in your time, not just in your finances.

If you have questions about any of this, if listening just didn’t give you the detail you need, you can get the transcript of this episode at my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com/blog, where transcripts of every podcast episode are available as blog posts. You are always welcome to reach out to me, which you can do through my website, or if you have more questions, the two books that I recommended for further reading are The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan and Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. I’ll link to both of those in the show notes.

Paying yourself first matters because it turns your business finances into a well-managed resource, so that it feels like you have more money even before you’ve actually started increasing your income. The next two episodes of this podcast, released the next two Tuesdays, will dig into to strategies for actually increasing your income. Episode 7, releasing on December 13, 2022, will be all about working within your creative and financial sweet spot, and Episode 8, releasing on December 20, 2022, will look at setting up asynchronous income, sometimes called passive income, in your business so that your income is no longer tied so directly to your time.

Finances are so often a huge stress for creative entrepreneurs, but they don’t have to be. You can build a business that gives you what you need financially.

Thanks so much for joining me today for this episode of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I’m honored that you listened to my little podcast as part of getting inspiration for your incredible creative work. I am always appreciative of ratings, reviews, and subscriptions. Those things help new podcasts like mine get discovered by new listeners. And as always, I’d love to hear any feedback you’d like to share. You can reach me on my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. I’m so grateful that you chose to spend this time with me. I hope this information was helpful to you and that I challenged you to think about your business finances and your time with a bit of a different perspective. You are capable of great things. The world is ready and waiting for you to share your art! I can’t wait to see what you create.