The Guilt Around Owner Pay

The Guilt Around Paying Yourself

Owner pay has been the hardest guilt trip for me to overcome. When my first company was making about $200,000 a year, I was working 80 hours a week to bring in that revenue. My salary was $54,000 a year, which meant I was earning roughly $13 an hour, less than minimum wage.

I was gone all the time, exhausted, missing important milestones with my family, never taking a true vacation, and paying my team more than I was paying myself.

The Cost of Putting Everyone Else First

At the time, I had two part-time employees who each made $25 an hour, almost double what I was paying myself. Their financial needs were being met, but my sanity was slowly unraveling.

Anything left over in the business went right back into it instead of toward my own paycheck. I told myself that was the responsible thing to do, but the reality was that I was building a business that depended on my exhaustion.

Then one day, while I was driving my daughter to a birthday party, she told me she never wanted to own a business because she did not want to be like me: always gone, always tired, and always stretched too thin. She wanted a job like her dad’s, where he took vacations, made it to her games, and made it clear that she came first.

The Wake-Up Call

How heartbreaking is that? I was devastated.

Not only was I barely making money for the hours I was working, but my child was using me as an example of what she did not want out of life. Here I am, thinking how proud she must be of me, when quite the opposite was true. That moment became my wake-up call. I was done with the status quo of hustle and grind. Yes, I wanted to continue to break glass ceilings, but not at the cost of my children.

It took me another four years to change my habits enough to work 20 hours a week and earn six figures a year. But that change started when I finally realized that underpaying myself was not a sacrifice, it was a sign that the business model needed to change.

Final Thoughts

If you are not paying yourself, here is a great worksheet I’ve used for myself. It will help you to analyze what you need to make, what you want to make, and what is keeping you from doing so (self sabotage). 

Download it here: Owner Pay & Lifestyle Planning Workbook

Want an accountant that talks with you every single week??? Learn more about us HERE