More Money Podcast - 2 The Truth About Freelancing - Josh, Freelance Audio Engineer & My Husband

Episode Date: June 3, 2015

I interview my husband about life as a solopreneur in the music industry, revealing the hard truth about life as a freelancer. Long episode description: I am so excited about this second podcast episode! Not only is it on a topic that I think many of you are interested in and can relate to (freelancing, solopreneurship, being self-employed, whatever you want to call it), but it gave me a chance to finally prove that my husband (or HB as I’ve previously called him on the blog) is real! I didn’t make him up! He’s an real human being and he was nice enough to be my first podcast guest. On my blog, I’ve mentioned over the years that I’ve always worked a 9 to 5 job, whereas Josh (my totally real husband) has been self-employed since the day I met him 8 years ago. We obviously have very different perspectives on freelancing and working “for the man,” but I think it wasn’t until we cracked open a few beers and hit the record button that we got into a deep conversation about what we really think about it all. That’s what’s so cool about recording these conversations. Without them, I’d have no idea about most of this stuff! For instance, at the end of the episode when Josh tells me about when he was younger and was deathly afraid of public speaking — he’d never told me that before! Sure, I knew he hated doing that kind of stuff when he was younger, but he’d never told me that story before. We’ve been together for 8 years and I had no idea! Isn’t that crazy? I guess no matter how long you’ve known someone, there will always be something to uncover later in life. Since Josh did mention a few go-to resources in the show, I wanted to make sure I included his favourites in these show notes. Just a fyi, Josh is seriously obsessed with Gary Vaynerchuk (in a good way of course). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come home from work to see him glued to his laptop watching one of Gary’s motivational YouTube videos about entrepreneurship and digital marketing. He’s not really my thing (way too high energy), but I can appreciate the fact that he sounds exactly like Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Helpful Blogs for Solopreneurs Inc.com Lifehack Time Management Ninja Josh’s New Obsession Ask Gary Vee Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to my second episode of Mo Money Mo Houses, the personal finance podcast with a dash of sass. I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. And today I'm going to be talking about a couple of things. One of the things that is, like is very popular in the personal finance sphere is this whole idea of becoming a solopreneur or self-employed, if you will, freelancer. Being someone who has absolutely no desire to ever be a freelancer, and I'll get to why that is in a little bit. I just find it fascinating that it seems like for millennials, a lot of people that I know, the end goal is to kind of put your time in at a company, get some experience, and then quit so you can work for yourself. You know, not work for the man anymore, but work for yourself. And so today I have a very special guest and I'm very excited about this. If any of you read my blog, you will know this man as HB or before HB. He was called BF.

But to me, he is my husband. And the exciting part about interviewing him is because I have tried over the past three years to maintain his anonymity because he just didn't you know I write about me in my life even though it's part of his life but he's always kind of wanting to keep a bit of separation so this is really exciting that he's letting me reveal some stuff about him and gosh darn do you want to say your name hb i don't know hey yeah sure my name's josh that wasn't so hard was it i'm your husband yes you are that's great don't be so scared i'm not gonna bite you so thank you for um accepting this invitation to be on my podcast i think you really had a choice

i know where you live yeah i was already in the room so yeah you were you actually set up all of this podcast equipment thank you you're actually recording this right now for anyone musicians or audio people out there when your wife says hey i want to buy some gear, you take that opportunity. Yeah, you do, and you run with it, and you have a great time. Totally. So the reason I wanted to interview Josh is he's been a freelancer for how many years now? Oh, like professionally eight years doing what I'm doing, I guess.

And what do you do do i'm an audio engineer so i don't really make anything the engineer title is a bit controversial sounds like you make robots no i nothing that i'm more like an operator and a creative professional so i record bands i produce music i write music i do sound design for commercials and tv i do what else do i do i'd say like the for from what i see the biggest things you do is like mixing and editing music so something will sometimes you'll record it or someone else will record it and then you get it and kind of basically bring it up a level with you know just kind of finessing it and uh however you do it i have no clue really i have like an idea i did go to film school i know what editing entails but for the

like eight years we've been together i don't really know how you do what you do i don't know i like the mystery, I guess. All right. So within that eight year period, obviously, you know, the answer because I've been living with you. But was there ever a time that you thought freelancing, being self-employed is not for me? I want to try something else and, you know, do the nine to five grind like. Yeah.

Quarterly. Every year. That's true's true even still you kind of once in a while oh all the time um honestly for now i can't picture myself doing anything else i love being somewhere different all the time i love just having the freedom um to sort of like i really i can do whatever i want i mean i do have to make money i have to pay bills and obviously like help support us and stuff but i could like i can do whatever i want i I mean, I do have to make money and have to pay bills and obviously like help support us and stuff, but I could like, I can do whatever I want. I don't have to be anywhere.

The only reason I have to be somewhere is because I want to be there to further my own career and my own agenda. And I think that's the thing that I don't like just as me as a person does not, it does not compute. I like working for a company cause I like having that routine and that schedule. I love knowing exactly what's going to happen the next day, the next week. I can plan years in advance because, you know me, I'm a planner.

I'm crazy organized and that's just how I am. But for you, because I always ask, so what's next week look like? Sometimes you have no idea. Well, I have no idea right now. Actually, no, next week I like sometimes you have no idea i have no idea right now actually no next week i do a bit but but in general it's you're almost sometimes working on a day-to-day day-to-day week-to-week i mean obviously that could change depending on you know what career you like if anyone else is self-employed it depends on what career you're in or what level you're at but in general right now you're in a situation where you literally do

not know what's going to happen so that's why when it comes to like a personal finance standpoint it can get kind of tricky like for me it's way easier to budget and figure out what my next five years could look like financially but for you you, it's just, I mean, you find out how much you made when you do your taxes, basically. And that's, you have an idea. I know. Like I keep a running total of everything, but yeah, it's, it's all up in there. I sort of like that because it's, I'm not limited by my salary or by my employer. Um, if I work hard enough and smart enough and I'm talented enough, I can make more money and it's just, there's no, there's no cap. So that's what I like about it. Do you also like that you don't have, although you have like clients to report

to you and make happy and everything, you don't necessarily have a boss. You're your own boss. Is that one of the things that has always appealed to you? I like that I have different bosses all the time. Okay. Um, time okay um it's it's funny because you have to be a pretty motivated person i think to do what i'm doing and i am for the most part really motivated and on top of it but you know when you do have those days where you get up and you like you know as someone that has a like a quote-unquote regular job sometimes you get up and you're like i don't want to go to work you have to go to work though you can't just not go with me if i get up and i feel that shitty there's a chance like if i really i could just not do whatever i'm supposed to do and say oh something came up so it's

sort of you know some days i do wish there was maybe a boss because then it'd be more like no i have to do this yeah you're a bit more motivated to stick to what you said you were going to do yeah but again that just comes with every year I get better at that and get better at scheduling and learning and planning my time. And now I put everything I have to do tomorrow in a schedule, whether it's something I paid for or not, whether it's business development or whether it's working on my website or just anything. I just schedule it all in. It's like if it's on a schedule, I have to do it. And that sort of helps. So one thing kind of going away from your personal journey,

but one of the things that I've been seeing a lot just with people that I know, people that are also bloggers, it seems like becoming self-employed, working for yourself is kind of the ultimate goal. And I feel like that's a a it must be a generational thing because in my parents time like you worked for a company and you worked for that company for decades like my dad worked for the same company for like over 30 years my mom still works for the same uh organization and she's been there since i was a kid so and that was just kind of what you did and then made sense at the time and that's been there since I was a kid. And that was just kind of what you did. I mean, it made sense at the time.

And that's probably what you did really in my parents' generation, my grandparents' generation. But for us, it seems like, and I know lots of media outlets talk about this all the time, millennials don't stick with a job for more than two to three years. And lots of them are just quitting altogether. And it could be that they can't find a job or they're just unhappy. They start their own business And lots of them are just quitting altogether. And it could be that they can't find a job or they're just unhappy. Yeah.

They start their own business or they become this new term of solopreneur and just work for themselves and do whatever they have to do. Do you think, like from your experience, because you have a lot of acquaintances, especially in the music industry, entertainment industry. Yeah. Is it just like kind of the trend now? People want to work for themselves instead of a company? It does seem really common. I've been reading because I keep up on a lot of sort of small business websites and blogs and articles and things. And there have been definitely – it's super – it's really popular. Like it's definitely – I don't know if trendy is the right word, but it's – there is a trend towards people doing that for sure um there's been a lot

of interesting articles sort of bashing that though and saying you know this this dream a lot of people have this dream like they want to you know work and do their side hustle and make their side hustle their main thing a lot of those people are going to get to the point where they can make the side hustle their main thing and be sorely disappointed it's not easy like it's well that and that's i think one of my biggest frustrations whenever i find out that someone has quit their job to become self-employed it's like i've been living with you for how many years been with you and i've seen you literally from the start when you got that first studio job yeah till now i see how freaking hard

it is yeah it is really really hard to work for yourself. Again, it does depend on what industry you're going into. You are in a very, like, music is very difficult. It's like high risk but high potential payoff, you know? But so whenever I see that, I'm just like, I feel like you don't understand how difficult it is to really succeed. Like, I wish everyone the best, but I just – I always am kind of worried that people have this idea that once they go with themselves, everything is going to be better. And it's so much better than working for – I don't know.

I mean – Part of it could be just bitterness that I'm like a company person and I like working for a company. You like it though. I like it. That's the thing. It just suits my personality. So whenever I hear people, you know, quitting these awesome jobs to work for themselves, I'm like, what are you doing?

That's a crazy idea. Like it makes no sense. No, I really enjoy it. I like the lifestyle. I mean, it's getting to a point now where at least, you know, I'm still like working towards something. I'm not where I want to be yet. Financially, like things are going okay they're going better than 80 of people trying to do what

i do um there's still a long way to go but every year you know income climbs a little bit but i'm working less like well that's the thing it's like i work you know you know you have to go to work every day of the week every single day only get weekends off i only get three weeks i mean i'm happy to get three weeks vacation now before i only got two weeks but still it's like it's a very finite time that i get someone pays you to go on vacation that's yeah that is nice but still you know i only have a very limited amount of time that i get for just me, but most of my life is at my job. And I mean, I love my job.

Thank God that I do. Cause it doesn't feel like, Oh God, I have to go to work every day. But it is one of those things where it's like, huh? I wonder, you know,

you do have more free time or not necessarily free time, but I'd say time that you get to choose what you want to do with it. Whereas for me, I don't necessarily get to choose what I can do with my time. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's more like,

I just, I just like the sporadicness of the schedule. I mean, sometimes it drives me nuts, but most of the time, you know, like in the today, I'm after this,

I'm probably going to work on something like some marketing thing or whatever. But, um, because of that earlier today, I could hang out for an hour and go for a walk in the park at like 2 PM on a Thursday or whatever day it is. You know, I just, I like that. I love that trade off.

Um, the conventional nine to five kind of work day structure just doesn't really appeal to me. I like that. I can, I mean, I get up when you get up because I'm a light sleeper. It's good though, because then I'm up and I start working at a normal, reasonable time. Like I'll be, you know, working by about nine, nine 15. Um, yeah, I like it anyway. I don't know. I started ranting there, but I like the lifestyle.

I enjoy it. Drives me nuts sometimes, but. So do you think it is kind of, oh yeah yeah this is another thought that i just actually had is i do feel with people that are considering you know going the freelance route that not only is it is a major personality thing some people may think that they want it and then try it and be like oh crap this is so not me totally and second thing is like especially for what you want to do but i feel like no in general whatever you're doing if you're being self-employed, most of your job is trying to find the next job and just networking, networking, networking. And that's one of the things that I'm absolutely awful at doing because I am, like, a major nerd introvert.

I have, like, big anxiety going to functions and trying to meet strangers and network. And I know you, you were also an introvert, but you have somehow like figured out a way to put yourself out there. It's gotten better and better. Like it's, uh, it's funny. I was actually with, um, like a colleague, like someone that I write with and we were talking about, there's this meetup group I go to and, um, every, at the start of every meetup group you do around, there's, you know, between five and

25 people. It's sort of random every time, but you do like around the circle and everyone says who they are. It's your time to kind of promote, do whatever you want. You can say anything you want in the time you have when you're introducing yourself. And that's sort of the only time you can do that so i've gone to probably i don't know 15 of them now more and now 10 or 15 like of that one of that one group you started to go to when we first moved here i feel like more okay it's been we've been here for almost two years and we've gone there almost every single week bi-weekly but bi-weekly

we've been to like almost all of them yeah so anyway the point is though i was telling this guy i'm writing with that you know that's a big deal for me because like when i was younger in school like i always i flushed really easily like my face so i remember public speaking was i would rather i would rather someone what if i was 12 or 14 i would rather have someone punch me in the face like 12 times in a row than talk to the class like i was praying for the flu every morning that we had public speaking i was like i hope i get so sick i'm throwing up all day so i don't have to go to school that's how much i hated public speaking i would get in front of the class and i my face would just be beat red i could feel

the heat like i just i'd stum stammer and i couldn't speak and it was just terrible. And so I was telling my writing partner this and his, his girlfriend and he was like, what do you really? Like he said the last, he said the last meeting, he said, I, you know, I'd said, I'm Josh, I do this and that. He's like, your pitch was so good. He's like, you scanned the room. He's like, did you take public speaking courses? Because it was, it was amazing. And he's like, when it got to me, I was like, well, Josh said everything that I wanted to say. So, you know, like it was just, I was like, oh, wow.

I didn't realize that I'd come that far. That's just a skill that you can't overcome if you really want it. Yeah. I just keep every year it gets better. It wasn't easy. It's still not easy, but it's definitely getting better. Every week it gets better. Absolutely. it wasn't easy it's still not easy but it's definitely getting better every week it gets better absolutely and it's it's for me it's been really cool to see the progression from the beginning where you were a runner at the studio and we're working like 16 hours getting people

copy essentially yeah to now where i mean before you'd have to you'd work that the studio and and then a little bit after that you would do kind of a bunch of different things you did like live sound and lots of theater stuff and some you know kind of whatever to make your money and now i think like 2014 was or maybe 2013 uh 14 2014 was the first year that you've been able to make your income solely on doing like recording and mixing and you know and not having to supplement it with doing any kind of live sound or whatever and like that's i know that doesn't sound that may not sound crazy but that's a big deal i didn't do anything i didn't want to do last year and that's like for work i liked uh there was a couple there were a couple gigs that were stressful or weird but i mean in general it always gets weird working with artists

the music's weird musicians are weird it's it's weird people in that industry man that's why i like it everyone's just like so many quirky people it's just yeah i don't know it's just every week's a strange situation with weird quirky people and you love it it's so good i love it i'm really i just yeah that's good so one of the things that I find also very interesting in the whole idea of being self-employed and freelance is the money part, not your favorite part. Yeah. Kind of what I mentioned before, having a kind of normal job, if you will, with a salary, it makes things a lot easier when it comes to budgeting and saving investing i can put everything into a spreadsheet know exactly what i can save for the year for you just because every week is different you never really know how much you're going to make and when you're going to get that money um how do you kind of wrap your head around keeping organized with your finances i know you have your

trap because i'm not super organized but it's because it's like organized chaos is what you're doing right now sort of like i do have a system but it's sort of weird because like as you said last year was the first year i really made like a hundred percent did music all year with a few other gigs in there. But, um, so in order to do that, I had to make a lot of business investments, buy some new gear, set up, make a home set up.

There was sort of a transition year, the last year and a half. That was an expensive year. Now that I'm thinking of all the things that you bought. Yeah. So things you needed. No, exactly.

And it's like, I, it's still the bare minimum. Like I'm just, you know, coasting on what I bare essentials, um, to do what I need to do. But so's like, it's still the bare minimum. Like I'm just, you know, coasting on what I bare essentials, um, to do what I need to do. But so really, like, I think of it as sort of a growth year for my business, which makes

me feel better about not saving a ton of money last year. Um, but honestly, that's just, if you look at, like, start reading anything on small business and entrepreneurship, it's small businesses, many many businesses usually not profitable for the first like several years so on that scale i don't think i'm actually doing that bad um anyway back to your question so how i budget um so when i'm in this sort of weird i don't expect to save a lot of money and reinvesting in my business mode uh the first thing is it's really important to have a buffer yes so there's a safety or what do you what do you call it in like a emergency emergency fund yeah so there's an emergency fund but then there's also

a buffer of i usually leave two months worth of like rent and like bare essentials like rent food utilities basically i like to have two months worth of just rent and like bare essentials like rent food utilities basically i like to have two months worth of just basic living expenses in my even just in my checking account um as a sort of buffer because then that sort of absorbs the difference between months so if i you know don't have a lot of work for three weeks but then i have 14 days straight of work the end of that month is going to be a bit short but it won't it'll be fine because i have that buffer and then by the next month it'll all kind of even out so it's more just thinking long term i guess and not so much specific dollar values week to week or month to month um as far as saving goes i mean

i have to put away a percentage for taxes um i have to put away a percentage for HST that I charge. So I have like all these different checking account pools for different things that come right off the top of basically every check I get. I automatically go into my bank account and distribute those percentages. And do you like log everything in a spreadsheet or how do you keep all of no because it's all in my like invoicing software it all it's already there all right i guess to sort of wrap up this episode um since you have been freelancing for oh my gosh close to a decade what are some of the most important things you've learned? Or if you were to be talking to someone who was considering quitting their job or they're out of school and maybe they're just planning on doing the self-employed route right off the bat, what kind of tips or advice would you give them based on your experience? I'd say just go for it.

You'll either fail miserably really quickly, keep trying and succeed or not. So kind of don't be afraid of failure? Yeah. Because it'll happen. You will keep failing. I fail constantly. You can't succeed if you don't fail. Like there's always, it's just a succession of failures and persisting until you succeed.

But I guess just the one fear, like I totally understand where you're coming from, but I guess the one big fear for most of those people would probably be like, but when do you know when it's not working? If you keep failing, keep failing, failing, should you just keep going until you succeed? It depends on how much you want to do whatever it is you're trying to do. Or how much you want to do whatever it is you're trying to do and or how much you don't like i don't really i've i don't really have a backup plan at this point there's nothing i like there's a lot of things i could do like i'm fairly skilled i could pick up other work i could get i can go to

school get another job but there's nothing else i want to do. There's nothing else I like doing. I think I'm the best at what I do now as far as like life skills. It just makes the most sense. So, so kind of follow your passion and listen to your gut at the same time. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a cheesy answer, I guess like the follow your dream or whatever,

but everyone can't, some people can't. It's not because they're not talented, not because they're not good at what they want to do because they're not like to succeed in business you have to be you have to run a business so if you're an artist if you like you know you like painting and you want to be a professional painter well you have to convince people to buy those paintings unless you're really good like you you know yeah prodigy or one of the top two percent in the world so it it's sort of you just have to really want it you have to want it also become a business

person which is absolutely the key you have to want it more than anything but also be aware that even if you're the most talented person at whatever painting whatever you need to have that business savvy and i think that's something that you've realized over these eight years i'm learning that's something i'm learning that's a and also just the marketing landscape has changed so much especially with digital marketing everyone has to be their own marketer now that's great because great if you can't like i can't afford to hire a marketing team, but I actually can do it myself now. Like, I have the same tools as every marketing business does. I'm not as good as they are, but I'm getting there.

You're getting there. Well, thank you very much, Josh, for joining me on the program today. Thanks, Jess. You are awesome for doing this with me, for me, helping me buy this equipment. And I'm hopeful that maybe you'll be on the program once again. Maybe. Maybe. That was fun.

I had a good time. Oh, good. Great. That's awesome. All right. Well, thank you all for listening to episode two of Mo Money Mo Houses, the podcast. If you want to read some of my blog posts, listen to some other podcasts I've done, please visit my website at momoneymohouses.com. If you want to contact me, feel free to tweet me at at momoneymohouses,

or you can email me at momoneymohouses at gmail.com. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network. Find out more at women in media.network.