There are so many hacks you get when you have your own business.
You can expense:
A portion of your rent
Your laptop, phone, camera, tripod, mic, etc.
Transportation (gas, car)
Travel (flights, hotels, taxis)
Food / clothing (if used for your business)
Education (coaching programs)
Tools (software like Canva, CapCut, etc.)
So today I’m walking you through how I set up my business as a lazy ADHD content creator, from taxes to personal investments!
For an explanation of business expenses, check out this video walkthrough:
Here’s a screenshot of the explanation from the video:
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When to incorporate and how much it costs
My business is incorporated in BC, Canada because I’m Canadian.
I incorporated when I made ~$60,000 CAD a year, but usually people recommend incorporating when you’ve made over $100,000.
Costs:
$200 to incorporate (I paid like $1k for a professional to file for me tho cuz I can’ttttt with the admin work)
$33 for annual report filing
$1,500 - $2,000 for accounting and bookkeeping
Amount varies for GST (tax for Canadian clients)
Note: my accountants and bookkeepers saved me so much omg I used to pay like $16k in taxes when I made $60k, but they got it down to like $8k when I made $100k
Explanation of GST (for Canadians only):
I am supposed to charge 5% tax for Canadian clients, but since random people purchase my Notion templates, I have no way of knowing when they buy...
What I do instead is just export the list of Canadian customers from Stripe, then pay the 5% GST myself (instead of having the customer pay).
Business vs personal finances
I track my business finances (very rough estimate) here:
But the number you see every month is not actually my money - it’s my business’.
I pay myself from my business bank account using dividends, not salary.
Since I travel a lot, I use Wise for both business and personal - it gives me:
Multiple currencies (I get paid in USD, spend in CAD and AUD)
Easy to use card with low fees (I use this when I travel)
Interest payments
Note: links are referral links! I wish I was sponsored by them but I’m not
Investing
I used to have a corporate investing account (pay less tax) but stopped because:
I needed the money for operating expenses (contractors / software)
I might be moving to Australia
On the personal investing side, I automated them using Wealthsimple.
So every month, my automations look like:
Wise → transfer to personal
Personal → transfer to investments
I already maxed out my TFSA, FHSA, RRSP (Canadian tax free investing accounts) this year so any remaining just go to my nonregistered accounts (I have to pay tax on them when I sell).
I invest in:
XEQT (Canadian all-in-one ETF)
[redcated] because I am an irresponsible investor (lost like $20k in crypto)
My friend Alycia has helpful investing content if you wanna learn more!
Finances summary
So that’s everything I wish I knew 3 years ago when I first started figuring things out on my own.
Back then, this is what I focused on:
Saving money by doing everything myself
Budgeting spreadsheets
Feeling scared to shoot my shot and ask for raises / sales
Looking back, I would probably should have:
Become obsessed with what I wanted to learn, regardless of my fears or qualifications
Invested regularly
Shared my thoughts - even if it’s scary
So now I have:
Set up automated investing systems instead of trying to pick winning stocks (wasted my time and energy)
Focused on earning more with my business (levelling up my skills and income)
Used extra income to invest even more
This is just me though - your situation might be different and you might like different things (maybe you enjoy searching up stocks!). My inbox is always open if you have questions 🫶
Til next time,
Jennifer
