Financial Update (Patreon)

Skip if you support the Patreon to enjoy a podcast, not for specifically knowing all my finances.

I thought this message was going to come much later in time. It's due to all of you that it's happening so early.

I got an update letter from the IRS in the mail, and reading up on it, I see that my tax bill is down to $550. It may even be as low as $220, but they're as obscure as usual and I'll be making a phone call tomorrow to get the real number. If it's that low, I'm using part of the July Patreon money to kill my 2012 tax bill dead.

We already ended the 2013 tax bill, so with the closing of the 2012 bill, that only leaves 2017, which had a boost from the Patreon and which means I owe something like $3200, which I'm about to start paying off. (I deferred it to October.)

To recap, I was hit with a $35,000 tax bill for 2012 in around 2014, which my accountant got down to $25,000, and which incurred a little more over a thousand in accountant fees to do. And then I got hit with a $5000 tax bill for 2013. One friend sent me a $14,000 gift towards these bills, which helped immeasurably. I also got the original organization which had caused some of the tax headache to send me some money, although that new money was taxed as well. This left me with thousands of dollars in tax bill still, but much less than $30,000. Combined with other bills that were lingering, I had some pretty severe debt to look at. My conservative estimate was that I was going to be able to get out from under all this by the time I was about 54. And then I started this podcast.

I'm 47.

So, that's a huge leap in quality of life. Not having this massive weight over my head and being concerned that the IRS was going to come smashing down into my life at any moment, that's a great load off. I still have things I owe, like some money I borrowed from my dad for a car lease, and ongoing medical or other large bills dropping on me, but by most standards I'm very much out of the woods and "just" living a standard adult life of a little more coming in at the end of the month than went out.

This will put us at a crossroads with regard to the Patreon in a few months, so I wanted to get ahead of it now.

At some point this year, you would no longer be putting money into this patreon because it is paying off my debts, but because you like the podcast and I can put it into savings as a buffer against unforeseen costs and, of course, taxes.

I mean, let's be honest - nothing puts a lift in someone's step than having money drop into their lives and being able to make choices because you won't be staring at a $0 bank account for those choices. But let's also be honest that I would never want a situation where people are backing this patreon to dig me out of a hole when no direct hole exists anymore.

What I'm saying is that at some point this will become "just" a podcast and at that point, I'd love people still giving patreon support but I want it clear you're contributing "just" to the podcast. If someone is giving $5 (or $50) towards an episode because they know it helps pay debt, and they want to give less because it's not righting me with taxes or debt, I entirely get behind that. Please do that.

Naturally, like many endeavors like this, I'll then probably try to get more subscribers, or encourage there to be a lot of people giving $1/episode or whatever, but I'll think that over when we come to it. I will never, ever be doing ads.

At some point the podcast will stop because I'll either be too busy to do it compared to other projects, or because the patreon income has dropped it to where it doesn't make sense. Either will be a fine ending - and thanks to the inspiration people have given me, we'll leave behind hours of nice spoken essays I had inspiration to create.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for this work so far. It has made a specific, clear difference in my life and I have this obfuscated document from the Internal Revenue Service to prove it.