2024-2025 NFL Season II Pink Pony Club [ARCHIVED] Football • Page 1497

Not facetious at all. I probably spent over 20% of my income this last year on something relating to my band, which is a LOT for someone with so little disposable income to begin with lol. Something’s gotta give.

Fortunately it seems a raise / promotion is imminent for me at my job, bout to start earning a real hourly wage on top of tips to be an assistant sommelier / lead server, and getting reliable hours even when it’s slow and they’re cutting the other servers’ shifts. That plus tax write offs will help me tremendously in terms of my band goals for the next two years

 

Yeah, def look at LLC'ing. My brother has been in and out of bands for like 35 years now and hasn't been in one that wasn't an LLC in like 25 lol.

 

But the successful “re-launch” of Terrain as a true up and coming DIY band is almost complete. We already have the ability to draw 100 locally (which helps us host touring bands that can show trade with us in their city and helps us have an argument to open for bigger & more established bands), and we already have the ability to tour cheaply via having places to stay in like 30 cities lol. We now have video proof of us playing in at least 10 different cities, which should help us do another push for social media attention, help us legitimize ourselves as a band worth booking in new places, & launch our YouTube. By summer I’ll have an album out and three 10-12 day tours under my belt and I’ll be WELL set up to try to get on FEST and unofficial SXSW shows next year to take the next step as a band

 

Very much hoping we get a lot of podcast and playlist and zine coverage as well. That’s a huge piece of the puzzle. Already got a Chicago zine willing to bring us in for an interview and write a review of our show there in May, fuck yeah that’ll be huge. if Chicago starts becoming another stronghold for us I seriously might consider moving there

 

I mean, again, this might be slightly different for a band, but, every hotel, every meal, every mile driven, that should be written off against what you earned. In H&R Block, I pay $10 more and get the premium and it does my Schedule C as part of that...I keep a spreadsheet of every meal/hotel/mile driven/toll paid, fill out 3 lines in the program and I think its like 50% of meals/lodging/etc write off, and like I said, 70c/mile drive.

For example, this is two trips, one a quick overnight to DC, the other driving about 6hrs to WI to film, and all the stuff I'll catalogue to write off.

I think last year, against ~$40k in earnings, I had $8k in expenses (a big chunk of which was a new desktop and laptop computer), which dropped my tax bill probably $1500ish.

edit: Looks like ~$2200 in savings off those expenses. Again, $7-800 of which was my computers, but, most of the rest is travel expenses. Which I build into my contracts knowing Ill be paying.

 

Yeah I rather easily surpassed $8k in band expenses in 2024 lol

shit. The drum set I bought, the rent at my practice space and the studio time alone was close to $10k not including travel and promo expenses lmao (which we generally do make back with our cut of ticket sales and our merch sales, to be fair… but that stuff ain’t paying for the studio time or the practice space lol)

 

100% do the upgraded version of one of that tax services, cause for $50 of cost, you're gonna get a TON back.

The Musician's Guide to Taxes: Top Tax Deductions

 

The problem is I need to start keeping records of this shit lol

every dollar I spend needs to go in a spreadsheet

 

yeah I’m making bar pies. It’s a super simple dough recipe and it might be slightly messed up but should still come out fine. This is the goal.

 

Randall, I have seen how you follow football for nearly a decade now. If there's one thing I'm confident in, it's your ability to track data in a spreadsheet.

 

The more I talk about this the more I realize being a DIY musician sounds crazy as shit lmao, imagine thinking it’s worth it to spend like $1000-$1200 a month on your hobby alone when you make less than $4k a month after tax to begin with. I genuinely cannot think of another hobby that poor people spend more money on aside from like, gambling or hard drugs lol

never underestimate the power of autistic fixation. playing music has always been my “thing” and I legitimately feel more mentally healthy when I’m actively pursuing it lol. I’ll probably play in bands until my body breaks down regardless if it ever becomes financially viable or not lol

 

Yeah, that looks awesome. I was always going for Brooklyn style pizza, which was fairly easy. The few times I did deep dish in cast iron, absolute tragedies. The I learned to let it rise in the pan and it turned out surprisingly fine.

 

You have seen him argue against me doing that for years

 

Yeah, It's why the goal for most is to get out of the DIY part ASAP lol

 

looks like pizza

 

I’m not giving out tax advice. I took one class in college and tax is only like 15% of the CPA exam so I have no real experience in it.

 

Nice

 

name 5 pizzas

 

tombstone
Red baron
Jacks
Digiorno
Freschetta

 

wrong

 

No love for Momma Celeste. wtf.

 

go birds

 

Dink stop

 

do not ask me what happens next