Alternate title: Your hard work might not pay off, and that’s fine.

In 2021, Vanguard—the second-largest investment firm in the world, trailing only BlackRock—saw inflows of roughly $1b per day. Overall, they’ve got $7.5+ trillion under management.

That’s a fancy way of saying that a shit ton of people stick their money in Vanguard.

When we see major firms like Vanguard, it’s easy to forget that they were once…not major. Today, Vanguard’s market share is larger than their next-three-largest competitors combined, but it took them 20 years to reach 10% market share. 20 years!

20 years of toiling. 20 years of Jack Bogle going toe-to-toe with Wall Street clowns and being told his idea was stupid and that his business model would never work and fighting for every single dollar under management.

Bogle’s story is interesting in the way that Steve Jobs’s story is interesting—Bogle was booted from his own company and (creatively) came back with a vengeance to change the investing world forever. These are the small plot points in the retellings of their stories: They last for a single sentence, and then are quickly replaced with details of ingenious strategy.

We forget that the single throwaway sentence of “getting booted from their own company” was not over in a few seconds (as our reading of its retelling is). They didn’t know what was going to happen on the other side of it, and it’s often not a quick, obvious move. It’s easy to keep going when you know you’re going to win—but when you’re not sure if what you’re doing is going to work, investing thousands of hours over many years is decidedly less easy.

What’s impressive to me about Bogle’s story, though, is that he stuck with it for a grueling decade of net cash outflows every year (meaning…more money was exiting stage right than entering stage left).

When we study these larger-than-life figures, we tend to remember the high points: Dude reads an academic paper about the validity of a fund that tracks an index (instead of actively picking stocks, as was par for the course back then), dude decides to invent said product and bring it to market, dude becomes legend. End of story.

Or is it?

Keep reading to learn why it’s OK if most of your energy and money is wasted, and how to ensure your success anyway.

Since our guest on this week’s podcast episode dives into personal finance for variable income, I’m throwing it back this week to an article about budgeting without a standard salary.

Also known as: My worst nightmare!

Just kidding. The ironic thing about this post is that a lot of my fellow salaried peeps are probably feeling slight, secret pity for the freelance hustlers out there who don’t have a consistent income, but my friends—your freelance pals are probably making more than all of us.

I’ve seen women quit their full-time jobs where they were guaranteed $4,000/mo. “safely,” only to find out they would actually have months when they could pull in $11,000 at a time working for themselves. In other words, we put salaries on a pedestal because they’re predictable and easy to work with, but often the way you actually become wealthy (quickly) is through creatively building your work and income in a way that works for you.

That said, it’s harder to commit to automatic transfers and a strategic financial plan when your September income was $11,000 and your October income was $500.

Harder, but not impossible.

Setting up your “Primary List”

Before you do anything else, set up your Primary List—this is your guide to your own life and how much it costs.

I literally want you to pull up an Excel document, copy and paste the list below, and then put numbers beside it. Seriously. It’s OK (great, even) if the answer for some of these things is “$0” or a rough estimate, but the idea is that we’re assigning values to the things you need to live.

• Cost of your home (the largest portion will likely be your rent or mortgage)
  • Water bill
  • Average cost of electric/power
  • Trash/fees
  • Wi-fi/cable
  • Cleaning
  • Lawncare
  • Maintenance
  • …and anything else you’re on the hook for
• Cost of your vehicle/transportation
  • Car payment
  • Car insurance
  • Gas
  • Public transportation costs
  • Parking/tolls
  • Maintenance
• Average monthly grocery spend (try to think about what you’d spend in a week x4)
• Minimum debt payments

Keep reading to learn what to do next.

While l resisted this episode topic for a long time (mostly because it seemed uninteresting), it became obvious to me in recent months that there are a lot of people in this community who fall into one of two camps:

1. Those who would like to become a creative entrepreneur and are looking for a how-to guide.
2. Those who are just curious how the hell Money with Katie was doing $40,000 to $50,000 per month at the end of 2021.

This episode should satisfy both of these groups! I dive deep into the details and leave no stone unturned (including the actual script I used to reach out to sponsors).

My guest, Lauren Anastasio, is the director of financial advice at Stash—and she breaks down the money management techniques that someone with a variable (read: entrepreneurial) income needs to master.

Oh, and one other thing: We’re introducing a new show segment aptly named Rich Girl Roundup, wherein we’ll answer a listener question. #Fun! Look at me being a ~podcaster~! If you have a question you’d like to submit, hit us up.

Listen now.

P.S. More of a YouTube > podcasts person? Watch the episode here.