How to stop worrying about money

The more you know, the less you stress

Author

Courtney Howard
May 28, 2025

In the May 2025 edition:

  • The simplest way to manage your finances and stop worrying about money

  • Quickbooks troubleshooting tips, including how to find in-person support

  • What I’ve been Netflixing lately (here’s a hint: 🔪🩸🕵🏿‍♀🦅)

My books are open for the summer! Get a strategic action plan, make your business stronger from the inside out, or finally solve that problem that just won’t go away.

The first step is setting up a free chat with me, here.

SOMETHING USEFUL

How to stop worrying about money

A persistent source of tension for solo business owners is the struggle to balance these two truths:

  1. The fundamental purpose of a business is to make a profit, and we all need money to live (thanks, capitalism).

  2. Most solo business owners value something else, like flexibility, autonomy, or well-being, more than they value making more money than they need.

This creates a constant striving to stay in the sweet spot where our businesses are making enough profit to be sustainable, but we’re not sacrificing our freedom or health just to make more and more money.

So what can we do to be in that sweet spot more consistently? Get better at managing our finances.

Hold on—why are we focusing on money if flexibility or well-being are more important?

Here’s why: When we’re freaked out about money, we obsess about it (even when we want to think about other things.) And nothing triggers a freak-out than feeling like we have no idea what’s happening with our money.

Having a simple financial system is the best way to think less about money, and more about the other parts of your business (and life) that you actually enjoy.

For solo-owner business finances, simple is best

A simple financial system gives us clarity about our money and the security of knowing we’re prepared for anything. The peace of mind that comes from having clarity and security is worth the work it takes to put a financial system in place.

These are the five elements of simple financial management:

1. Have a separate bank account and credit card for your business.

This is probably the most common piece of business finance advice out there. That’s because it truly is crucial.

When personal and business transactions are mixed up in the same bank account, or on the same credit card, it creates a giant mess that’s a nightmare to untangle, especially at tax time. It’s also nearly impossible to get useful insight into your business’s finances. Save yourself the trouble by keeping personal transactions totally separate.

Opening a business checking account is pretty straightforward—the folks at the bank will help you. I really can’t emphasize enough how much easier everything becomes when you can isolate and track your business transactions. Remember not to use your business account for personal purchases.

2. Use bookkeeping software to track your income and expenses.

Once you have a business checking account, connect it to your bookkeeping software to track your income and expenses. I, and most accountants, use Quickbooks, but there are other options like Wave or Xero.

I recommend having an accounting pro set this up for you. Your accountant should have a Quickbooks advisor they can point you to, or scroll to the “Something Useful” section of this email for a resource to find someone local to help.

I don’t recommend using a DIY spreadsheet to track your finances. They’re error-prone and usually not automated, so it’s easy to get busy and not update it for months at a time. Bookkeeping software will import your transactions automatically and even categorize some of them for you, which is a huge time-saver.

3. Review your business profit (or loss) every month.

Now that you’re tracking your income and expenses, you can review your profit and loss regularly. This is a standard report in Quickbooks.

Each month, make sure all of the previous month’s transactions are categorized, then pull a profit & loss report for that month. Answer these questions:

  • How much income did you receive?

  • How much did you pay in business expenses?

  • Was your business profitable (income > expenses) or did you have a loss (income < expenses)? It’s ok to have a loss in some months, but it’s important to know why it happened and if there’s something you can do to avoid it.

  • Are any of these numbers surprising or confusing? Click on the numbers in the report to see a list of transactions that are included in the total.

The goal is to become extremely familiar with the flow of money in and out of your business. Ideally, looking at your P&L should be routine and boring—but if something does go awry, you’ll see it immediately. And if you’re consistently seeing a loss, it’s time to take action to grow your income or cut expenses.

4. Plan ahead for unexpected/emergency expenses and paying taxes.

Nothing will make you feel safer than knowing you have extra cash stored away for an unexpected expense or slow period. To set a savings target, calculate how much money you’d need to pay for rent, utilities, app subscriptions, and other fixed expenses if you couldn’t work for 3 months. Add in how much you’d pay yourself for that time period. That’s your emergency fund target.

For tax payments, set ~25% of your net profit aside and pay estimated taxes quarterly (federal and state). I know it’s unpleasant but paying quarterly taxes is much, much easier logistically and financially than saving it all for April 15th. Ask your accountant for help with this.

5. Set monthly goals and track your progress toward them.

At this point, you have dedicated financial accounts for your business, you’re tracking income & expenses, you’re reviewing your P&L regularly, and you have money set aside for emergencies and tax payments. Time to set some revenue goals!

A simple goal-setting process can look like this:

  • Use your historical revenue numbers as benchmarks. Ideally you’ll have year-over-year numbers (e.g., using July 2024’s actual revenue to set a July 2025 revenue goal.) If you don’t have data going back that far, it’s ok. Next year, you will.

  • Think about whether you expect future revenue to be higher or lower than your historical benchmark. Factors to consider: economic conditions, things you’re doing or not doing that may result in higher or lower sales, gaining or losing customers, etc.

  • Starting from your historical benchmark number, set a goal that is either higher or lower based on your expectations from the previous step. Keep it reasonable; maybe a 10% uplift if you expect to see revenue growth. So if July 2024 revenue was $5,000, your July 2025 goal is $5,500.

I recommend setting goals 6 months at a time—in December, I set January-June goals, and in June, I set July-December goals. This gives me a good balance of flexibility and accountability.

Track your progress against your goals and see how accurate your projections were. Don’t worry if you miss a goal—use what you learned to tweak your goal-setting approach. The REAL goal here is to pay close attention to your finances, and if you're tracking progress against revenue goals, you’re certainly doing that.

Following these five steps will give you a financial system that will make you more confident and less stressed—and free up some mental space to concentrate on things that matter to you more than money.

If you want support moving through these steps, reach out. As I’ve noted, your accountant can help you with a few of the Quickbooks & tax-specific things, but if you’re looking for more comprehensive financial management guidance, I’m happy to help.

SOMETHING NEAT

If the previous article inspired you to take a fresh look at your finances, these resources will help when things get confusing (and with bookkeeping software, there’s almost always something that’s confusing.)

Both links from Fit Small Business.

A LITTLE TREAT

Uzo Aduba in The Residence

We’ve been loving The Residence on Netflix over here in the Catbird household. A perfect mix of murder mystery, comedy, drama, and watching Uzo Aduba put everyone in their place. Great on a rainy evening with some popcorn 🍿

WORK WITH ME

This newsletter is for everyone, but a one-on-one consulting engagement is tailored to you and your business. Here’s how I can support you:

  • Strategic Action Planning—For solo business owners with a lot to do, and never enough time. We’ll refine, prioritize, and organize your goals, and I’ll create a road map for you to get them done. (My most popular service.)

  • Operations Analysis—Is your business built on a strong, long-lasting foundation? An operational deep dive will reveal opportunities for improvement, and tell you exactly what to do to make your business more resilient.

  • General Consulting—Get expert support with solving business challenges like workload sustainability, financial fundamentals, pricing, client communication, and more.

Thanks for reading—see you next month. If you have a business owner friend who would find this newsletter useful, please share it with them!