Work Smarter, Plan Better, Play Louder with Joe DiSanto

Joe DiSanto He spent the majority of his career in Los Angeles, starting and managing entertainment businesses—most notably Therapy Studios. While his wife (a film editor) and he had a great run in LA, we decided we wanted to slow things down and focus more on our family and our 4-year-old son. So, we moved to a charming little town on the Florida gulf coast. Now he has a bookkeeping & consulting business, as well as provides educational resources via our blog!

Joe DiSanto is a fractional CFO and consultant to small businesses and high-income individuals. He also founded the blog Play Louder, which serves as an invaluable resource to help individuals and business owners increase their net worth and plan better for their future.

Episode Highlights Here:

Joe:

If you don’t know what your annual savings are, you don’t know if you’re saving enough, and you don’t know what your savings are gonna get you to where you need to be. And all those things.

Pierce:

What’s the number one secret to managing your finances?

Joe:

Effectively? as silly as it sounds, I think the linchpin is bookkeeping. You know, it’s as simple as that. Now, I actually shouldn’t say it’s as simple as that. But it’s like the fundamental thing that you need to do to, like, have all the information you need to, like, make a good plan. And like, I always say to people, I think I mentioned this already, you know, you should treat your finances like a business. And when I say that, you know, think about it. It’s like if you had a business, or you’re talking to your friend who had a business, and you were like asking him like, you know, about how do you manage the finances, whatever. And they were like, oh, you know, we don’t do bookkeeping or anything for the business. It’s, like, too boring. So I don’t know how we do as a business. Exactly. But I know I enjoy it, you know? And I don’t know that I don’t always get a paycheck. I know that I’m not sure why. But sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Well, that would just be ridiculous, right? You’d be like, how do you run your business? And not actually, like, know how much money you make? How much do you spend? How much profit you’re making? Like, what’s good revenue? What’s revenue? Maybe you should cut loose because it’s not profitable. All the important questions? Well, if you don’t do bookkeeping, you can’t answer those questions, and you can’t make a well-educated decision going forward. So I say to people, you got to do bookkeeping for your personal life, too. It’s not that different than a business. It’s like you have money in, you have money out, and the net profit is your annual savings. And if you don’t know what your annual savings are, you don’t know if you’re saving enough, you don’t know if what your savings are gonna get you to where you need to be. And all those things. So I say it’s really important. I think of it as like exercise, you know, it’s one of those things a lot of people don’t want to do. But unfortunately, it’s perfect for you. And if you don’t do it, you will likely suffer some consequences. That makes sense. Okay, so how do you then?

Pierce:

How do you get good at bookkeeping? Or how do you do?

Joe:

Well, it’s like, again, exercise. You just have to do it. The good thing about the difference between bookkeeping and exercise, you can’t pay someone else to exercise for you. And, like, improve your body, you can pay someone else to do bookkeeping for you, as it turns out, and just like, give you the information you need, you know, and help you make decisions. Obviously not, you know, depending on your income level, you know, you might not want to do that. But ultimately, it’s just a matter of doing, you know, you use some computer software, you don’t do it like on paper, you don’t do it in like a spreadsheet, you know, you need something that you can put the data in, and then pull a report and say, Okay, this is where I’m so a for personal finances when I manage people’s personal stuff. I use Quicken personally, I’m not affiliated with them, but I find it’s what I’ve always used. And you can combine everything in there, I managed to buy real estate, and they’re like, I mean, I could tell you what I spent on laundry, and like 9099 if you wanted. But if but for businesses, you know, small businesses, mostly it’s gonna be QuickBooks and FreshBooks, or whatever, but it’s basically just using software, you know, to track all this data. And then, of course, you know, the tracking itself is tedious, you know, for most, but it’s the information you get from it that is just so important, you know, and I do say, sometimes, you know, there are some people that can out earn the need to do this, like you just make so much money, that, you know, having some waste in your system just doesn’t matter. That’s pretty rare. In my opinion, number one. Number two, if you do it, you’re going to net you’re going to save more than you would have otherwise, no question about it. And number three, what I’ve learned is you’d be surprised no matter how much money you make, you can find ways to spend it all. You know, that’s, you could be making a million bucks a year and still be losing money every year because you got 16 boats, and four ski doos and five houses and what have you. And you’re not getting closer to financial independence, you know, right? When and when I can always say is whatever you’re making today, there will be a time in the future, most likely when that income potential will be reduced, you know, so you got to make the most of what you’re making today. So I think they’re, you know, pretty much anybody is going to benefit from it. And, you know, the mega-rich, they keep track of their money. They just pay a whole team called the family office to do it. Right. Do you know what I mean? Of course, if you don’t make millions, well, you might have to do it yourself, you know. Gotcha. All right. Are you could not fit in and suffer the consequences and stay stagnant right and exactly interesting

Pierce:

Okay