Philip "PT Money" Taylor: FinCon, Online Entrepreneurship, The Creator Journey, Financial Independence, & Community | FRLP 111
Philip “PT Money” Taylor went from carrying roughly $70,000 in debt and working as a corporate CPA to becoming a full-time creator and building FinCon — the leading conference for personal finance creators and brands.
In this episode, PT shares how personal finance blogs changed his relationship with money, why documenting his journey helped him stay accountable, and how a simple idea to bring internet friends together grew into an event that shaped an entire industry.
We also explore the future of the creator economy, the impact of AI, the importance of finding your people, and why you should start creating before your brand, niche, or business plan feels perfect.
PT also explains when creators should form an LLC, separate their business finances, hire a CPA, and begin treating their content like a real business.
Fit Rich Life Podcast Episode 111 with Philip “PT Money” Taylor is available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and wherever you enjoy your podcast entertainment.
Connect With PT
PT Money: PTMoney.com
FinCon: FinConExpo.com
Creator CPA: TheCreatorCPA.com
In This Episode
How PT paid off approximately $70,000 in debt
Why writing publicly creates accountability
How blogging became a full-time business
The origin story of FinCon
Why beginners belong in creator communities
How in-person relationships accelerate success
The evolution of blogging, YouTube, social media, and AI
Why creators should choose formats they genuinely enjoy
When to form an LLC and hire a CPA
How entrepreneurship accelerated PT’s financial freedom
Why freedom is about family, health, creativity, and meaningful work
Chapters
00:00 — How FinCon shaped the creator industry
00:59 — The early personal finance internet
07:42 — What is FinCon?
11:03 — PT’s CPA career and debt journey
21:30 — Why PT started creating online
25:03 — Writing, accountability, and financial progress
31:35 — How PT Money got its name
36:53 — The origin of FinCon
40:41 — The power of in-person community
46:30 — Why beginners belong at FinCon
55:59 — The evolution of the creator economy
59:30 — YouTube, AI, and independent creators
01:09:20 — The business side of creating
01:10:59 — Why PT created Creator CPA
01:14:32 — When should a creator hire a CPA?
01:18:27 — PT’s evolving definition of financial independence
01:26:18 — Entrepreneurship and financial freedom
01:28:11 — Fitness: Prioritize protein
01:30:11 — Money: Open the account
01:32:04 — Life: Connect with something greater
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Full Episode Transcript
Philip “PT Money” Taylor: FinCon, Online Entrepreneurship, The Creator Journey, Financial Independence, & Community | FRLP 111
The Early Personal Finance Internet: Anonymous, Transparent, and Collaborative
Justin: PT, you created one of the rooms where the modern personal finance creator economy really came together. When you look back on the first version of FinCon, did you know you were building something that would shape an entire industry?
PT: Man, I definitely did not. I was really just getting together my friends at the time, you know, and selfishly creating something I think that could benefit me. And also just kinda keep the fun that I was having with this community going.
Justin: I love that. So I discovered financial independence in the whole personal finance online world at the very end of twenty seventeen. But you were very early in that space. And I'm curious what the personal finance internet felt like in two thousand seven through two thousand eleven as you're coming up.
PT: It's funny, I felt like at the time I was sort of joining a group that was kind of already going and it was and the party was over to a degree. I mean, I was reading these blogs and kind of looking at this stuff, consuming it for a long time before I even started. I would say back in two thousand three I started reading blogs and just taking it in. And by the time I joined in the conversation, I honestly I felt like I was a little late to the party. But what it was like, it was anonymous. So because the internet was sort of new and sharing online was new and we were talking about financial stuff, people were sort of less likely to be upfront. But that also gave them the benefit of less likely to be their true selves. They wanted to use an acronym or use sort of a you know, go by just a nickname versus being fully out there. And so that wasn't in a shady way. It was in a way so that they could then share, I think, more information. So back then I thought it was more or at least the content I was attracted to was very you know, tangible. It was very much like here's exactly what I contributed to my 401k this past year, or here's my budget every month for you know, this service or this, or here's my savings goal specifically, or how much debt I've got. Right. Sharing your debts a, you know, kind of a can it can be a shameful thing, but this community of people were they were very open about their numbers, but it was at the same time also very anonymous. And I think that created a stickiness to the ones who were out there sharing and talking to each other because they were the ones having this conversation that in the real world no one was really having.
And it's certainly not online. And so I don't know, it create it felt like a group of people that I was attracted to because they were having these conversations and putting these goals out there for themselves that, you know, were exciting and were interesting to me because ultimately it let it would lead someone to freedom, you know, in their life. Freedom and independence in life, which is what I discovered through the years is one of my biggest values, you know. And so, yeah, just being exposed to that community, that's what I think about early on is how much detail they were sharing and how that open it was eye opening stuff. And it was just a it was a smaller group, you know. Yeah, and I think blogging in general back then was a little more collaborative in that we're gonna all comment on each other's sites, we're gonna all cross post and you know, guest post and there was this idea that we were sort of building the internet, right? So
Why not link up? Why not join forces and have this conversation and build this thing together? Because we were building online personal finance education all together at the same time. So it was a cool community feel to it for that reason.
Justin: Yeah. I love how early you were in it because as I mentioned, I didn't discover any of this until the very end of twenty seventeen. And it started and I've shared this story on the podcast multiple times, but I was eighty thousand dollars in debt and six years behind on my taxes. And I was cleaning up my taxes. Thank God I was actually working with a CPA for the first time ever who was helping me and what I loved about her the most, I still work with her to this day, so almost ten years later, is she didn't give she didn't make me feel ashamed that I was behind on my taxes. She just helped me figure out what to do next and, you know, just told me, okay, I need this from you and I need you to do this and send this in. And but during that time, it was the I believe around July of twenty seventeen, I've always been a big fan of Tim Ferris
And I heard this interview on his show with this guy named Mr. Money Mustache. And I'd never ever heard someone talk about money in the way he talked about money. And I didn't do anything with the information at all. I literally just was kind of astonished at how open and direct and upfront he was about money. And I parked it in the back of my head. And then a few months later.
Towards the end, I was cleaning up my taxes and I was like, you know what? I need some motivation, some inspiration to keep slogging through these taxes. So I'm gonna Google that Mr. Money mustache guy. And the shockingly simple math behind early retirement came up and I read it, and that was really the first blog, personal finance blog article I'd ever read.
Cause I just thought, you know, the only money articles out there were, you know, Forbes and Fortune. And my mind exploded. And I was like, holy fuck, if I had known and understood these concepts in this simple blog article, I would already be a millionaire. Cause I've always made good money. I just was a terrible steward of my money. Looking rich instead of getting rich, spending more than I was making.
You know, kind of a lot of the funny stuff that people do to look like they made it, even though you know, behind the scenes they're racking up debt. And that totally changed my entire financial trajectory. And I'm so grateful to personal finance bloggers because that's really how I got my start is I binge read his entire blog from every single article from start to finish.
Then at the same time I looked up podcasts and found choose fi. And I think they'd only been in existence maybe for a few months when I started listening. And then that was part of my weekly thing. And then of course all the other people like Paula Pant and budgets are sexy and all those and I just went down the rabbit hole and it really transformed my whole financial journey and I really do give full homage to the early financial bloggers and content creators for my financial turnaround. So I love that you were part of that space. And I'm just curious, you know, before we dive more into your entrepreneurial journey of creating FinCon, first, for those who don't know what FinCon is, give me the
PT: Yep.
Justin: Quick and dirty, you know, elevator pitch of what FinCon is. And then I want to go back to the fact of you being a CPA. So I'm a big fan of CPAs, obviously, 'cause they help me a lot. And then kind of your own debt journey and whatnot. So what is FinCon? And then remind us back to your own journey of debt and being a CPA.
What Is FinCon?
PT: Sure, sure. FinCon is now a 15-year-old gathering annually of personal finance content creators. So people, whether they're a blog, a podcast, YouTube channel, TikTok, newsletter writer, Instagrammer, whatever, if they're out there educating folks or sharing their story about personal finance and financial independence, if they're doing that on a regular basis and they want to kind of collaborate, meet brands, come together, talk shop, I know FinCon's the place of the to do that every year. So we've held that every fall since 2011. And we started with around 250 people and now we're up around a thousand people. Its peak 2019 were we had upwards of like 3,000 people at the conference. It was crazy. We just attracted this larger sort of set of general personal finance interest, right? Because the idea of talking about it online and sharing content about it just sort of ballooned up.
But you know, it's a co it's a conference and trade show. You know, it's pretty straightforward what it is. It's you buy a ticket, you come, you meet with brands, you learn from other creators and you have parties and have dinners and just kind of connect with people. And it's a been a life changing experience for me and for thousands of content creators who choose to come year after year and participate in the event. And it's only really as good as the creators who come and share ideas, and the brands who come to host parties and make this industry, you know, go around. So it's a lot of fun. It's a fun project for me to produce. Our next one will be in Palm Springs this September. So we'll be we'll be three days there in September. So it'll be it'll be a fun time. But that would that's kind of what it is now, but happy to walk through sort of what it was at the beginning or, you know, my journey wherever you want to wherever you want to go with it. But it's it's been a life changing event.
From Big Four CPA to $70,000 in Debt
Justin: Yeah. And we'll dig into that, but I want to kind of go back to your own origin story. But I also want to let the audience know that I went to my first FinCon last year in 2025 in September in Portland. And I was telling PT before we hit record that I am kicking myself that I didn't go to this five years ago, or really shortly after I kind of discovered the whole financial independence movement. Because I've always had a desire to create content online. And I already have my ticket for Palm Springs. Still gotta book my hotel. I know that's important to your event. So I'll get that booked ASAP. But take us back to kind of you're exiting college, you're getting into the world of being a CPA. I know you fought you followed in your father's footsteps in that regard. So kind of take us back to then in your own
You know, why did you start reading these personal finance blogs and that part of the story?
PT: Yeah. Yeah. Happy to share the origin story. You know, I came up a successful student, and enjoyed college and like as you said, I kind of did what dad had done, which is get an accounting degree and ch you know, chase the CPA. Which I thought was a wise move, regardless of what I do with my life, sort of getting that knocked out. Ultimately if I become an entrepreneur or do something different, having that CPA will, you know, help me in life and
There's a lot of truth to that, you know, and I would still ad advise young folks to pursue a degree and a license that can set them up for success long term. But I chose to do that, sort of chose a safe path, went into public accounting, worked for one of the big four accounting firms at the time, and discovered I really didn't like corporate life, you know, because if you're, you know, at a big accounting firm, that's who you ought it is big corporations. And so
I would go and I've just discovered I didn't like the cubicle world. I didn't like corporate bureaucracy or all the complex layers of business when they get that big. It wasn't interesting to me. So I fumbled around for a couple of years and during that process I had student loans. I had accumulated some credit card debt in college. I had a car loans. So I had some debt that was hanging over me and now I
Because of those things, I didn't really have a choice whether I wanted to work or go back and figure something else out or sort of I just needed a job, you know. So I sort of took the next corporate job or next accounting job that came along and resided to the fact that I was so somewhat trapped in that world until I could kind of figure out how to unravel it. And so then begin the unraveling, which was first probably discovering Dave Ramsey and hearing him on the radio on the way to work.
And being sort of interested in that and thinking, okay, well that's probably step one. It's getting some of that debt off of me. In my accounting career, my CPA had not warned me about debt or told me about debt or you know, taught me to deal with it. So I was just paying probably minimum monthly payments on everything, just sort of scraping you know, scraping by, thinking, I'll eventually when I make more money I'll get to them or you know, I don't know what I was thinking, but I was just basically kicking the can down the road with his high interest debt. And just wasn't aware of how much you know how much penalty and payment I was actually making by treating it that way. So I didn't know much about personal finance. My parents had struggled a little bit with debt. I'd seen that be an issue in their life. So even for the entrepreneur, even for the financially savvy entrepreneur, sometimes debt can be an hindrance, you know, to what you're doing. And so for me it was Dave Ramsey and then it became David Bach. I found his book, The Automatic Millionaire. I found early personal finance blogs, as I mentioned. Jim Wang's at the time, bargaineering.com. He does wallet hacks now, but he was an inspiration for me early on. I enjoyed Get Rich Slowly and Consumerism Commentary. Great blogs. And I just discovered the more personal side that Dave hits you with
You know, the radio, the bombastic, sort of the big you know, get out of debt stories, but I wanted more of the details behind it and that's where the blogs I think filled in for me and got that's when it got really exciting because just getting out of debt, you know, was one thing and that was gonna create a little more freedom in me. But then it like, Well, where are you going? Where are you going with this thing? You know? And I think by seeing the other bloggers I saw that, I could take this into a business. I could take this into a freedom lifestyle.
That's what the bloggers were displaying. They were displaying like freedom from debt, advanced savings, fast tracking to independence creates more freedom in your life. And then you can do what you want. And so for the guy that was sitting in the cubicle, you know, that was dealing with the debt, it wasn't motivating enough for me to just say, all right, let's crush this debt. I needed a little something extra. And that's what the blogs I think gave me. It gave me the why behind, you know the steps to get out to get your financial act together. And I think it's important to have that why and to attach it to your own desires and demands. Let's see, at the time I think when I first went into the corporate world, I think I had about thirty thousand in student loan debt. I had about not too much, but I think it was about fifteen thousand in credit card debt coming out of college, which is crazy. And another
Probably twenty five thousand in auto loan debt, somewhere in there at its peak. So all probably at terrible interest rates. But yeah, so that was kind of the or the setting early on. Then I discovered my dad was savvy enough to try to motivate me with tax savings, right? So he knew I was getting that big corporate paycheck. And he said, You know, you could not pay as much tax if you contribute to a traditional IRA in addition to your four hundred one K.
And so I started looking at that and seeing how it would work and started doing the math. And that actually got me excited. It got me excited to avoid taxes a little bit, you know, with what I was doing. And so that spurred me on to start thinking a little bit more about the investment saving side of it. That kind of set the picture for me. By that time I was kind of in my late twenties and I would say I was meeting you know, I'd met my fiance now, you know, ultimate wife.
And so it kind of all came together, you know, needing to get financially savvy, needing to get ahead of things, get dead out of my life before I get married. So yeah, that's kind of the picture of who I was early on, you know.
Justin: Yeah. I love the story and I appreciate you sharing so openly. So all in, you had about seventy thousand dollars of debt in your twenties, which is not anything to sneeze at. That can feel crushing. I remember when I had eighty thousand dollars of debt, I just felt like the weight of the world. I still remember to this day waking up at two or three in the morning just stressed about my debt. Plus stressed about being behind on my taxes. And I love that you shared.
That the tax savings and the investing inspired you to get a little bit more serious about your money. Because the same thing happened to me, even though I was in debt when I discovered Mr. Money Mustache, when I saw the possibility of work becoming optional if I got my shit together financially, that and I actually I've I've always had.
Good jobs and great bosses, and I never hated work, but I hated the feeling of being dependent on other people and companies, and that my livelihood was in the hands of somebody else. And so when I discovered what could happen if you save and invest a portion of your income, that you can actually eventually become work optional, that lit a fire.
PT: Yep.
Justin: Under me to crush my debt and work towards financial independence. And I it sounds like you as when you kind of started with this tax savings and the investing, it also gave you motivation to clean up your debt.
PT: One hundred percent. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And I don't know what it was about that mixture of inputs I was giving myself, but or if that's ultimately just where I was going to end up anyway. But I yeah, I'm thankful that I have it. I'm thankful that, you know, that came into my life at a time when I could take action and it was pretty straightforward for me to do it and I had a lot of levers to pull to you know, to climb myself out of the hole I'd found myself in.
So I yeah, I'm thankful for that.
From Reading Personal Finance Blogs to Writing One
Justin: Yeah, and I'll random side note based on two people you brought up, JD Roth of Get Rich Slowly and Jim Wang of Wallet Hacks. It's funny, I met both of them at FinCon last year and it was so fun for me, especially JD Roth, because I went back through his old blog and it was just I loved him as a writer and just I very fascinating man and
It's so open too about his own journey, both from a financial standpoint, but also kind of the struggles of kind of figuring out what he's doing with his life now that he's kind of financially independent. And I just love open, honest, and vulnerable people. And it was just it felt so cool to actually meet him. I still remember it shortly after I met you.
We were in the main conference room and I was like, Hey JD Roth, you don't know me, but I know you. I'm friends with some of your friends. And ended up being like, I'd love to get you on the podcast. What's the best way to contact you? And he's like, just take my cell phone and like text me. And I was like blown away. And I was like, This is fucking amazing that this kind of stuff happens at FinCon. So we'll talk more about FinCon, but one of the things I love most about FinCon is how open.
So many the big creators and OG creators are. It's not like they're, you know, famous A-list asshole celebrities. They're just like real people and so happy to connect. You were the same. You're like, absolutely would love to come on your podcast. Just shoot me an email. And I appreciate you being nice enough not to mention that it took me long enough to get you on the show because I talked to you in September of last year and now it's June, so that's been nearly nine months. But I'm gonna circle back to you and what I wanna know is what made you go from reading personal finance blogs to publishing your own story through your own blog?
PT: Hm. That's a good question.
You know, I think from a high from a energy level or high level, I think it was sort of I was done consuming and ready to create. So I had, you know, received enough and I was ready to then sort of put my spin on things and participate, and give and something to give. So I wasn't 'cause I wasn't a writer, you know, I wasn't like raring to have a blog, but I wanted to I wanted to chronicle what I was doing and journal, you know, essentially what was happening in my life and
That mindset actually I think is healthy for an early creator to have a mindset of just journal, just chronicle what you're doing. It's literally a log, a web log that you're that you're doing. So regardless of what channel you're on, don't take it as a the first step shouldn't be performance. It should just be sh you know sharing and sort of cr chronicling what you're doing. So that's kind of the idea that felt safe for me, a non-writer. And as a newbie to this world and I already looked up to JD and to Jim and said, I can never be those guys 'cause those guys are the best communicators and those so smart and just I still get inspired by those guys. And so
I sort of divorced myself from the idea of being like, you know, this big A-list personal finance blog. But I felt like there was still something within me that I could share that was valuable because it's personal finance, right? So at the end of the day I could share what's happening in my life, the projects I was working on. And, you know, even it di if it didn't cr come across like you know, sort of mind blowing stuff, it was at least me. And I could look back on it one day and say, There's where I was. I was doing this, you know, and I was going through that dur during my life. So I think I gave myself permission to not think about it as this big project, but just simply, you know, logging the ideas. I had technically done a running blog about a year before that.
And that was literally just me putting my times and my training and stuff like that. I was kind of pursuing marathoning at the time. And so I was kind of putting some of that on a so I knew how blogs worked from a technical standpoint. So I wasn't scared of the technology aspect of it. And so I just jumped in. I said, Hey, I'm PT. That's gonna be my acronym. I'm gonna go by PT. I'm gonna be anonymous and I'm gonna share the interesting things that, you know, are in my world at the time.
So I think my first blog post was something like, should I rent the pay-per-view for the next UFC fight so I can watch it at my house with a couple of friends? Or should we just go to Hooters and watch it there? So I analyzed the financial aspects of that decision.
One that's very ridiculous, but it's the great that's a perfect topic for like a blog post where it's like no one else is gonna write on that nerdy thing. It's really not that big of a deal. But it was fun for me to sort of explore both sides of that question and use it as a riffing point to I guess talk about how I think about money, you know. So, that's kind of the some of the early stuff I did. I missed that version of me, you know, 'cause 'cause I got too serious with the blog at one point, but that piece of it was a lot of fun. So th that's kind of some of the early stuff I would do. But yeah, just you know, got the domain name, got WordPress, started publishing.
Why Writing in Public Holds You Accountable
Justin: Why did writing publicly help you stay accountable to your own financial journey?
PT: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. One because you know, then you've put something out there and you know the one or two people reading it will at least, you know, somewhat hold you or in your mind at least they're holding you accountable to it, you know, whether they care or not. But you know, you've said something and you've written it. So writing it, thinking it, writing helps you think. Writing helps you think a lot better than you
Then you think you are a natural thinker anyway. Writing really puts it in a way that shows that you've really thought through what you're trying to communicate. So by doing that, it challenged my own ideas and it allowed me to really think, do I really believe this? Or am I just thinking it that I believe it? Or now that I've written it, it helps to kind of clarify it and look at it from a different angle. So,
So yeah, writing does that. It holds you accountable to your own words. It makes you think deeper about them. And that it also gives you sort of bait for the future, right? So I'm gonna be I'm gonna be writing about this down the road. So I want to have paid off so much debt by the time I do my next debt update, or I want to show people how much I've contributed to my retirement. So I better get on that, open that account up or whatever it is. So by ha by the there's a pull that happens when you become a creator and you feel this. It's like I've got to I gotta go to the well. I gotta find something to bring to the people, you know? And so that pull is positive mostly. Sometimes it can get negative, but it's a positive pull that brings you along to bring stuff back to the tribe, you know, you to show cool things. You know, I didn't want to just put you know, another random blog post up. I wanted to cut put up something fresh and cool and interesting that the other bloggers hadn't seen and for them to say, Hey, this was a cool idea or this was refreshing or this was neat that you're pursuing this. That's why there's that new tax law that's coming down or whatever. And you know, so I could help and be a part of this conversation. So absolutely it if you get in the content stream, it's like steroids for your finances, I think, if you're talking about finances.
Justin: Yeah, I totally agree. There's and you shared so many different gems. I think putting any idea or any goal down in writing does something magical. There's this I have this crazy story where I wrote down this goal of getting to one point five million in three years in a journal, like handwritten in something called
I have it right here 'cause I keep trying to the It was. So shortly after I discovered financial independence and at the time I was using this journal called The Passion Planner. And it was really big back on the day on social media and stuff, and I've almost got the creator on my podcast to talk about this. But anyways, I wrote it down and I wrote all these ways I was gonna get there.
PT: Was that a five number for you? Okay.
Justin: Just idea after idea. And this is all just in my own journal. And then a year and a half ago, I opened the journal up and I looked at the that and I was like, holy shit. And then I've been tracking all my finances, my net worth, and I looked back and I didn't even know it. But I actually hit that one point five million to the month that I fucking wrote down.
PT: Amazing.
Justin: And it was like mind blowing. I was like, holy shit, I gotta get this person on my podcast to talk about this because I think whether you're writing in public or writing privately, there's something truly magical about taking the ideas in your mind and putting them to paper or digital note or whatever, but just getting them out of your mind. And you said this yourself, it makes you think deeper and like, do I believe this or am I just
Think I believe this. And when you try to put it into words, you kind of come up against like, wait a minute, I don't totally understand what the hell I'm saying. Cause I can't write it clearly. So I need to refine my writing, which refines your thinking. And it's just this beautiful process. And you know, you talked a little bit ago about kind of logging your own journey online. You started with your running blog, and then you
PT: I
Justin: Then moved into personal finance in your own personal finance journey. And there's something so powerful about building in public or taking a journey in public, whether it's running or personal finance or anything else, because it does keep you accountable because you want the next post to actually, hey, I made progress. Or even if you didn't, hey, I fucked up and here's how I learned. And then you're really mining.
PT: Yep.
Right.
Justin: The journey for all the wisdom and the gold that it can provide if you take the time to reflect on the journey as you go through it. And I just love that. Like, I'm so stoked that you told me because I didn't know you had a running blog before. And it made me think about my first blog was called Life's Rake, like R A K E, which is like, you know, a fashionable debonair man.
PT: One hundred.
Justin: And then it became Alchemized Life and it was all about transformation. And then it morphed into and my podcast was originally called Alchemized Life. And then now my brand is Fit Rich Life. And that's been my brand for the last three or four years. But I think it's so cool how creators we kind of continuously evolve and reinvent our own online identity.
And I was looking at your blog earlier today, and I know you're, you know, PT Philip Taylor, but your blog I know it says part-time money. And I was like, was that originally what it was called? Or is PT Money like his name? Money? Like, so I'm curious about the evolution of that. Like, help me understand how that started. And really, like, I want to understand in that piece.
Kind of when you decide like holy shit, I can actually make a living blogging.
The Story Behind the PT Money Name
PT: Right. Yeah, yeah. So it's very boring how this happened, but I guess it might be interesting to some. But you know, I was running with the fellows in high school and we all gave each other rapper names. And since my initials are Philip Taylor, they called me Primetime, like Primetime Deion Sanders. So they would call me Primetime, and then somewhere along the way that I just got shortened to PT and they would just start calling me PT. And then occasionally throwing in PT Money, you know. So PT
T Money kinda hung around in my life, for a while before I had a I mean, this was when I was a high schooler. So it just was there.
And a couple of high school buddies always kinda, you know, occasionally reference that or whatever. So when I we came to the blog, I was, you know, just didn't have any necessarily good ideas, but I thought, I'm prime time. You know, that's I can riff off of that a little bit. Maybe we'll do prime time money. And so that's kinda where I started. I thought, it's got the word money in it, prime time, no one's really taking that. Prime time kinda means like now it's the time to do it.
Yeah, it's I don't know, it sounded cool, I thought. And so I went and bought the URL, PT Money, just because I wanted a short URL. And I figured, you know, if prime time doesn't working out, I'll just go buy PT Money. So started with Primetime Money, then switched just to PT Money for a while because people just always just called me PT Money 'cause the URL was that.
And then somewhere along the way I said, Hey, this is really gonna be more about side hustling and stuff you do, you know, outside of your main endeavor. And so that's kind of where part-time money came in came into play. So I kind of evolved through the years. Yeah. Not so sure that was those were the best decisions, but that's kind of where it ended up. You know, so that's that's the boring story of PT Money and the domain name. So
Justin: Yeah.
PT: It didn't hold me back. You know, people think, you gotta have this perfect name, you gotta have and maybe I would have done better under a better name or whatever. But when people got to the site, they discovered my writing and my story. So it made sense a to a degree that it was centered around PT, you know, and kind of what I was doing and what I was interested in. And that umbrella actually allowed me to then explore a lot of topics underneath, well, what is prime time money? What is PT Money? Well it's whatever I feel like writing about, whatever I'm excited about.
You know, or and you sort of mentioned how writing, you know, sp spurs you on and holds you accountable. Like, I don't think I would have become a real estate investor had I not had a blog. Like we had our condo and we were gonna move to another house. We probably would have just sold it. But I said it would be amazing if I rented this out and told the story of how we like became landlords through having, you know, having a now a condo that we rent out. We still rent that condo out.
It we've paid off the mortgage. It cash flows like crazy. It's a couple of blocks it's a couple of miles away. It's a great property. I never would have done that, I don't think, had we had the, you know, not had the blog. So yeah, testament to sharing as you go. But that's that's kind of the story of the PT.
Justin: Yeah, I love that too because I think one of the points I wanna illustrate for the listener or the viewer is it's okay to just start with whatever name kind of makes sense for you at the time, but it's also okay to update or evolve the name. Right. So I love the name for me, alchemized life has a lot of meaning, but a lot of people have no fucking idea what the word alchemized even means.
And so and I yeah, it I and it's all about transformation and I don't have to go into it, but I realized because I was very attached to that name, but I realized wait a minute, fit rich life is so much people understand like he talks about fitness and money. Very
PT: It's too smart. It's too cool.
I love it.
Justin: Yeah, very easy, right? And sometimes as a creator, you have to go through this journey of trying on different names and identities and brand styles and everything. And that's just part of the process. So I think the point I want to make is like just fucking start with whatever brand name or URL you want, knowing that you probably will update or change it.
You know, 'cause yours was originally prime time money, now it's PT Money and the PT now starts stands for part time, right? And it's all and my, you know, I used to be Alchemized Life, now I'm Fit Rich Life, so the life's still in there, but the it's evolved.
PT: Yeah.
Yeah, and the brand could ultimately take off or it could not. And I would say I would argue that, you know, PT Money has had some success, but it hasn't been my biggest endeavor. But had I not done it, I never would have done FinCon. You know, so it's like just get going with something. You never know what's going to lead. The brand might take off, or it might give you access to something else that then does take off. So action is key, you know, just taking action.
How FinCon Started: A Newsletter and a Late-Night Idea
Justin: A hundred percent. So take me to the moment the idea of FinCon came to you and how that evolved. Because I was researching you earlier today, listening to some podcasts, and yeah, anyways, I'll
PT: Yeah. Yeah. So is fast forward or reverse back to two thousand seven, that's when I started PT Money. Three years later I took it full time. So I went full time as a blogger in twenty ten. That was my independence day. I still remember it. I loved leaving corporate the corporate world. I was thirty.
Thirty three years old, thirty two, thirty three years old. I felt amazing. I felt you know, like I could do anything. And the blog was now supporting me and my wife and our we had saved, we'd gotten rid of all our debt on that journey. So personal finances was a part of that success.
I did that for a year before or six months before I came up with the idea for FinCon. So I guess I needed another side hustle, you know, as fast as possible. But anyway, I loved blogging full time, but it allowed some more freedom in my life. And I was now that I was a full time blogger, I guess I had made it to a degree.
I wanted more time in front of other creators. I wanted to hang out with them at other conferences. I wanted to get together, wanted to talk shop in the forums and just, you know, be with them as much as possible. Because being with them, talking to them had led to my success. So I said, let's do a conference. Let's let's call it the Financial Blogger Conference.
I launched a newsletter and said, Hey, if you wanna find out information about an upcoming conference that we're gonna do together, sign up for the newsletter. Instantly had a hundred and fifty people on the newsletter like in a couple of days, and I said, Okay, there's a lot of interest here. So
I registered the domain financial blogger conference dot com, I believe. And kind of went down that road and you know, used the newsletter to sort of pull information from the community to try to figure out how that what they wanted in the event, where they wanted to have it, when they wanted to have it, who was gonna speak, what we were gonna do there. I mean, it was really community driven. I just tapped into the existing set of creators around me and said, Hey, I'm gonna host. I'm gonna put on the show, I'm gonna take the financial responsibility.
I'm gonna, you know, be the guy that welcomes you when you get there. But that's about it. You're not coming to hear me. You know, I don't have some big blueprint or game plan, but I know that we're all better off if we come together and we share ideas and we build a central location for us to kind of have a space. And so that was kind of my posture early on, was just you know, and I was nervous about doing that. I remember talking to my wife, over and over again about the idea and then ultimately she got tired of hearing about it and she just told me get up. I think I was even laying in bed at one at night when I came when I talked to her about it last. And she said, just get up and go register the domain right now and go make it and just do it right now so that you stop asking me about it. She's like it's a good idea, do it. And so that's kind of where it started. And yeah it's been one of the coolest things I've done in my life just to start that project because
You know, as you've come to learn, it's a fantastic group of people who have a great cre they're creatives, they're passionate about finance and their abundance mindset pe people. They love sharing and collaborating. And we've done a lot together and it's really cool to see, you know, that event come together. So we did our first one in Chicago, outside of Chicago in se September or October of twenty eleven.
Why In-Person Community Accelerates Your Growth as a Creator
Justin: Yeah. And again, I said this before. I'm kicking myself I didn't go to FinCon when I first started creating content online. And I just wanna share some of my experiences and
Talk back and forth with you just a about why it's so important to connect in person with other creators. And you mentioned this in passing already a few times that even back in your early blogging days, there was a lot of collaboration and you really helped each other build your audience. Guest posting on each other's sites and I'm guessing.
That you know as you went into PT Money full time you and you no longer had a workplace that you're going to you wanted to connect in person with the people in your new field of work and from that FinCon was born. And I love the story about your wife just being like GIS go fucking register a domain. It reminds me of what like
PT: Right.
Justin: I talked about starting podcasts for years and my wife was like, You need to fucking hire somebody whose only job is to hold you accountable to launching your podcast. And that's what I did, and that's why I have a podcast. So shout out to the wives for getting us off our ideas and into action. But
PT: Mm-hmm.
Even if it even if it comes from a place of annoyance.
Justin: Yeah. And mine my wife was it was the same. It was from Annoyance. It was like you need to fucking go hire someone whose job is to hold you accountable to getting this idea off the ground. But
I think that's where if I were to go back and do my creator journey over, I would have gotten into community, in-person community so much sooner. Which my financial independence journey, the reason I went from negative $80,000 in debt to a millionaire in a little over two years is because I started an in-person FI meetup group that met every
Fucking month. And that kept me so motivated, so inspired. It gave me the accountability, gave me the ideas, it gave me the energy to pursue Fi with a vengeance. Cause I felt like I had gotten a late start because I didn't discover it till I think I was in my mid thirties, thirty four, thirty five. And now reflecting back, I'm like, that was being in that physical in person community.
With five people was the reason I went so fast, so quickly, and had so much fun on the whole journey. And now I'm feeling that as a creator. Like I'm so excited to be a creator since I went to FinCon. I just like cause I met all these people doing all these different things. And you know, I was telling you off air, there was this one presentation I went to the gentleman's
TikTok and Instagram is John's Finance Tips. And this man had the most basic PowerPoint presentation I've ever seen in my life. It was zero graphics, black and white, and ugly as shit. But he literally sat there and showed us copies of the emails between him and these brands that wanted to pay him.
Money to create TikTok and Instagram videos, like verbatim screenshots of the emails. And this man literally did one to one point two million per year over the last three years in brand deals. Like fucking three million dollars in three years brand deals. And he sh just opened up the beside behind the scenes curtain of how he created this massively financially successful creator business. And these are like just random talking head videos, not overly produced, literally fake green screen behind him, him just talking. And I was just like, holy fucking shit. That I just got every penny's worth of my ticket price, hotel price, air travel
Like I would have paid ten times what I paid just to hear that talk. And I was so inspired by him, even though I haven't done much with that because I'm financially independent. I thought back to myself, if I had seen something like that at the beginning of my creator journey, and I told you off air before we hit record, if I had been going to FinCon for the last five years.
I'm almost without a doubt would be making a million dollars a year online as a creator by now.
So I that's how powerful FinCon was for me. And that was just one of many, many, many instances. But I want to hear you kind of talk about why in your own experience meeting in person with other creators, and then also just kind of why you think any creator should come to FinCon, even if they're at the very beginning of their journey.
PT: Yeah.
That's good. And we often hear from folks who eventually make it to FinCon things like, you know, I didn't feel like I had earned my right to be there or I didn't I felt like everyone was going to you know, I didn't have a friend to go with or no one was gonna wanna talk to me or whatever. There's lots of objections to being to joining a community or being around it. But I the one I hate to hear the most is the one where it says, I feel like I've unerned it you know, and it's like, man, it should be
It should be the opposite. You need to come so that you can earn it. And earning is be sort of being a part of the community, you know, and being there. And it unlocks something in you when you hang around other people who are passionate about what you're doing the same way you're passionate. Some people are lucky to have that in their, you know, in their regular life. Maybe they have a spouse who's entrepreneurial and has their own thing, and so they're sort of getting fed that way. Maybe some have, you know, a small business group close by. But I guarantee you it's to find another personal.
Finance creator, you know, is kinda was definitely hard for me. There were a couple in Dallas that I hung out with, but like that wasn't enough. You know, it was I was getting fed by that a little bit. I would go to other conferences and get it. And I just my philosophy was well, why not more? Why not a little more of that? So that I can learn more and fast track what I want out of this whole thing. Not in a way that uses people, but in a way that just exposes my mind to different ways of thinking about things and
And unless you there's something about in person that kinda changes that posture a little bit for people. You know, there's there's some things can be passed for back and forth online, but man, in person is so nice to have. And so we're lucky to have that with our community at FinCon and one piece of it is, you know, just these are the people who are weird like you, you know. So why not why don't you want to go hang out with the other weirdos? Like, you know, that they're gonna you're gonna feel you're gonna feel understood. You're gonna feel appreciated and respected and loved and all the things that your unique heart is sort of by creating, you're sort of putting that out. That's part of the creation process is putting yourself out there. And so it's one thing to do it online, but to also do it in person, you know, kinda has a special connection. So I'm a big fan of the community piece of it. To me, if you're gonna be in the event business, it's gotta start with the community in mind. That's why when I started I only felt my confidence and my direction came from the group of people who existed before the event. And that's who I was creating it for and that's where we were gonna go with it is where the creat what the community wanted. And I knew that's where the power you know, sort of lied in the thing. So yeah, I would encourage folks to find it. In and in your case, you didn't have it, but you created it. You know, you went out there and created a small collection that you could of folks you could get together with on a regular basis, hold each other accountable, you know, get inspired by. So by all means, if you don't come to our the FinCon conference, like go to find the one that works for you. There's lots of other ones out there. So yeah I believe in it wholeheartedly.
Justin: Yeah. Couple follow up notes from my own experience related to some of the things that you said, PT, is
I think one of the benefits for me going was just meeting people and realizing that they're normal human beings or, you know, weirdos like me. And that if they like getting in their presence and realizing like holy shit, like they're doing it. I can totally do this. And it almost made me feel like I had more permission to you know
Create in ways that were authentic to me. Cause I still remember, like I don't even know who this person was. But I still remember there was this one woman who was like super tattered up, crazy colored hair, piercings all over the place. And she was a personal finance creator, and I was just like, That's so fucking cool. There's so many different flavors and versions of finance creators. And you know, I kind of go down the you know, I've I mix my personal finance stuff with fitness and kind of lifestyle and, you know, mindset stuff. So I'm I consider myself kind of like a different
Type, you know, I'm not true just pure finance. And I think just seeing so many different people taking so many different angles, combining so many different facets of their own personality into their creator journey. And then just like learning how they did it, what tools they use, how they think about growing an audience, how they think about monetizing an audience, how are they doing it in ways that are allowing aligned with their values and their vision of the type of business that they want to build. And because I think with every creator, we have to we if we want to turn it into a business, we have to figure out how do we do it in a way that's authentic to us and doesn't feel like we're just trying to make money. Right. And that's one of the things I love so much about FinCon was just meeting all these different creators who made money that were in way like you know, John's finance tips, he was similar to me.
He had a business to business sales background and he just took that philosophy. He ran his creator business like he ran his business B2B sales career. Literally, he had his whole pipeline and CRM and everything. He just ran it like a B2B sales playbook. And I was like, this is fucking amazing. Like
Holy shit, he took a skill set he built in another industry and he applied that skill set to the personal finance creator space and dude's making millions of dollars. It's crazy. And just seeing how people do that and then all the different flavors and you know, shout out to Cody Berman. I you know, he's been a friend. He was as I mentioned to you, is the second guest on my podcast. And
I've told this story before, but the way I met Cody Berman is he actually came with Grant Sabatier to my Fi meetup and did when Grant Sabatier was doing a book tour for financial freedom, his book, and Cody was his tour manager, and they were traveling around in a fucking van. And so that's how I met Cody, and then he became podcast guest number two, and then I reached out to him and
To get your email because I couldn't remember at FinCon, you're like, just send me an email. Here's my email. And then I forgot what it was. But Cody's presentation, he sits there and tells us, I have a three, four-year email sequence. And I was like, What? Like, you have an email sequence that goes for four fucking years? And
PT: Mm.
Justin: I'm literally in the middle of building my forever nurture email sequence because of his talk at FinCon. I was so inspired by the system of the business that he built, and in the way he did it was that was very authentic and true to him and his vision of business building. And it's like just like Cody Berman's talk, John's talk.
I was just so inspired. I was like, Jesus Christ. That's why I say, you know, if I'd been going to FinCon for five years, I'd already be making a million dollars a year online in a way that felt authentic and good to me. So I think anybody, especially at your even if you haven't started your online creator journey, but you're interested in that as a potential side hustle, just come.
And you'll be so inspired. It's the ticket and the hotel and flight will be worth it. And even if you decide not being a creator is not for you, I guarantee you'll make memories and make friends and have such a good time.
PT: Yeah, I love it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks, Justin.
How the Creator Economy Evolved: Blogs, Podcasts, YouTube, and AI
Justin: Hundred percent. So
Next question is related to being a creator. And I know you have some thoughts on kind of the evolution because you've been in this since 2007 or maybe even before, first as a consumer, then as a creator, a blogger. And I just would love to hear some of your thoughts and reflection on.
You know, the evolution of being a creator, you know, from blogging to social media and whatnot. So give us your thoughts there.
PT: Yeah. Yeah, I've been around since then been writing online since two thousand seven. So I think I have a somewhat unique perspective on it. But you know, writing on the internet, building, you know, what we've built in the personal finance, education, information space, has definitely evolved where it started, you know, mostly with the bloggers, you know, people kind of creating their own web pages, websites, journaling.
And then we had podcasts come along and sort of natively sort of sit alongside that and rest pretty well with them. And then shortly after YouTube started and so immediately you had sort of the trifecta of possibility audio.
You know, the written word and then video. So back then it was more of a open creator environment. The internet was freer, it was more independent and more Wild West ish. And you could sort of get out there and create what you wanted and there was not a lot of gatekeeping going on. So you could just kind of make it what you wanted, you know. And there was a period there where that's what creators did. They just sort of made the internet and
They wrote about things, they got attention. And if they were i in the you know, doing using it for business, they were getting clients or getting clicks. You know, social media came along, changed the game a little bit, took the attention off of the individual platform you had created yourself and moved a lot of the conversation over to those social platforms. That's not necessarily new information. But at the same time corporate media figured out what was happening with content online and started flooding the zone, flooding the space, buying up websites and really trying to grab that market share and take over. So you had the Forbes and the Fortunes and the even the USA Todays or Britannica or you know, you name it. Any anybody who could sort of halfway throw a iron in the fire toward what we were doing online.
Said, you know what, that'd be nice. And with our credibility, we could do it better. You know, so it started crowding out independent media on blogs themselves. So you started seeing some of the market share takeaway. So it was harder and harder to you know, reach people organically online when you would search for how to open a savings account or how to get started with a Roth IRA. No longer was it JD Roth or PT Money telling you how to do that, but it was some writer over at Forbes.
In some cases that's great. It's a CFP or a CPA or someone who does know what they're talking about and maybe is even sharing, you know, like important personal details or whatever that would make it interesting. But most cases it made the content I feel like more stale. Luckily though social media was there so people could still sort of share those things on those spaces. It's just marketing through that area became a little more challenging. So, I don't know. I still think there's places for creators to create. I think YouTube is one of them. I think certainly it's still what blogging was probably even ten years ago. You know, you can really get on YouTube and create some unique content and it's not being flooded by corporate media yet. So I think the individu individual voice still has the leg up on this platform, on the YouTube platform. So I'm bullish on that. AI has obviously come in now and disrupted a little more.
Search is being disrupted by, of course, AI answers. So you're seeing less and less people being directed toward individual creators and toward a generic answer that was in fact built upon the information that we who built the internet a long time ago wrote. But you know, I think vi I think video is still an interesting place because it's just so hard to replace. I think AI is gonna continue to struggle replacing video creators.
So to me it's a safe place to kind of continue what you were which if I was starting over today, I would go immediately to YouTube and do personal finance content on that platform and it's almost exclusively work there, maybe in combination with a newsletter and some social media a little bit, but that would be the that would be the place I would hang my hat. Yeah, and what do you think, Justin? Thoughts on that or what where are you thinking we're at? You know, I well I'll end with this.
I'm I am very bullish on the creator economy. I'm I think that creators have a we're still in the early phases of it. And I think that individual media outposts in an independent space is a healthy thing for us as consumers. And so I champion that and as long as you know the corporate entities and bigger media outlets don't continue don't completely always crowd us out.
You know, or AI completely takes it over, then I think there's a spot for us. So I'm not sure I said much in that word salad, but
Justin: No, I think your perspective having been, you know, one of the early pioneers on personal finance blogging and then going on to start a conference called something with the word blogging in it. I forget what it your original conference name. Yeah, exactly. So I think that perspective's really cool. I think where I'd push back is I think
PT: A financial blogger conference which became FinCon, yes.
Threads, YouTube, and Creating on the Platform That Fits You
Justin: Actually, first I'll agree with you. I think I'm so bullish on the creator economy. I think there i think we're at the very beginning of that as a whole new industry. Where you can make millions of dollars creating in ways that are fun and interesting to you, using tools and formats that are fun and interesting to you. And one of my two of my favorite
Creators that I've followed that are not in the personal finance space. One of them is Justin Welsh, who got his start on LinkedIn and only written content. Then he moved to Twitter slash X, built up a massive following there. And then he went to Instagram. And every single post of his is literally just a screenshot of a Twitter post. And
He doesn't have a podcast. He does the only time you see him on videos is him doing an interview on someone else's show. And dude has made several million dollars over the last five years. You know, doing millions of dollars in a single year just as a writer. And he's passionate about writing, loves to write, and so he kept his focus there. And Dan Koe is another.
Person that I look up to who he really got his start on Twitter slash X and then he built up an Instagram built up you know basically everywhere he did he does do YouTube so he's pretty big on YouTube now too but his whole angle is everything starts with writing and then his
His newsletter posts become YouTube videos, et cetera. And I told you off air, I'm incredibly passionate about writing. And I think Threads, Instagram, or Sorry, Meta's new kind of Twitter competitor, ex competitor, Threads is so untapped. There are some personal finance creators on it, but it's just
They there's now more active users on threads than there is on Twitter slash X, which is wild because it's such a new platform. And I've posted every single day for the last two years straight. I haven't missed a single day of posting. First year took me I got to about ten thousand followers starting at eighteen hundred. A year and a half in I was at twenty K. And then in the last five months on Threads, which is a micro blogging platform. It's all pretty much all text. I've added a hundred and twelve thousand followers in the last five months. And I love video, but I don't love the amount of time it takes to produce video. I can bang out some threads post. I can spend five minutes a day on it if I feel like it. Other days I spend a lot more and I write really long super threads, which is a bunch of threads put together.
PT: Right.
Justin: And I think as a creator, you want to find the ways to create that are a joy for you that don't feel like work or feel like work that you feel really good about doing. So if I had a huge pr video production team, I would do way more video. But I'm just like I at this stage of my journey, like I'm too lazy to even cut together clips of my podcast. So I just released the full podcast.
An hour and a half, two hour fucking show on YouTube. And this is probably why I have less than a thousand followers on YouTube. But I write, you know, two to ten threads a day on threads, and I have a hundred and thirty-two thousand followers. And so I think whether you love to write, whether you love to just speak on a podcast, or whether you love to do video, there's a platform for you. And if you follow the
The subject matter that is interesting to you and you create on the platform that is a joy for you to create on, you can become wildly successful. And so I think YouTube is amazing. Like if you have the determination to put out a video a week as well as create shorts, you can make a ton of money and you can create
Create a whole career. You know, our friend Chad Carson, he did a talk at FinCon last year. He was actually one of my coaching clients for my fitness coaching business. And one of the things that was so amazing about FinCon for me, it was the first time we got to hang out in person. We had spent hours and hours on Zoom together in our coaching engagement, but then he gave a talk at FinCon in 2025 about how he grew to a hundred thousand.
PT: Cool.
Justin: YouTube subs subscribers. And he's crushing on YouTube and he's great at it. But I just love that there are so many different ways to create and be successful, whether you like being on camera, whether you don't want to be on camera at all, like Justin Welsh and you just want to write, or whether you're kind of a hybrid person like me or Dan Co. Who likes to do some video, do a lot of writing and do other things. I think, I think it's
It we're so early in the creator journey. And I think in the next few years, if we don't already have one, we're gonna have a one person creator. No, we already do have one. Like Mr. Beast. Like this dude's like almost a billionaire by now. I mean I not I don't really follow him, but I know dude's making hundreds of millions of dollars as a YouTuber. And if we don't already have
PT: Right. But he's got a team. Yeah. Right.
Justin: A hundred percent. But still he's a single individual who took the creator thing to you know, we're gonna have a bunch of hundred millionaire, billionaire creators in the next three
PT: That's what I'm
Yeah, I think we'll have a billionaire that's only that's truly one person eventually. Absolutely. Right.
Justin: Especially with AI now. Like I have a couple contractors, but I'm I they're able to do more and more for me because of the tools and a lot of the work that they used to do I've taken back because AI can do it now.
So I'm so bullish. And I think AI is just unlocking people. And if you learn how to use that as a tool and not it becomes you, right? Like I think that's the power of being a creator is using all the tools, whether it's YouTube or threads or AI, to help you share your ideas, your brand, your vision, your mission, your values. And I'm just so bullish. But yeah, I think there's a place for all types of creator.
PT: Right.
Hey, shout out to Threads. I'm gonna revisit it. Thank you. Good advice.
Creator CPA and the Business Side of Being a Creator
Justin: Yeah. Of course. And who knows, maybe I'll give a talk at FinCon about growing on threads. Awesome. So let's talk about the business side of being a creator. And one of your newest businesses is the creator CPA. And as I start to make more and more money as a creator, I'm just, you know, I'm kind of in the beginner of monetizing my this my side of
PT: Let's go.
Justin: My creator business. You know, I've been successful as a fitness and money coach, but I'm still kind of figuring out the whole creator business, like where it's brand deals, it's sponsorships, it's all you know, getting paid, you know, the most like I made a bunch of money on threads early because they used to give a bonus every month. So I made, you know, five or five hundred dollars a month for several like for almost a year and a half.
Before they took that away. But it's like now Facebook is paying people insane amounts of money to create content on Facebook. I there's this guy I followed, Jeff Rose, maybe you know him, and dude's doing like twenty, twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars a month creating on Facebook, which seems like such an old ass social media platform, but people are making crazy money on it. So walk.
PT: Nice.
Yeah.
I know, I know. If you stick around long enough, Meta is gonna find a way to make, you know, something pop again, you know. I feel like that's what they're doing. With threads, with Facebook, yeah, you're seeing it. You know, they're investing in those places.
Justin: Yeah.
Yeah. So tell me a little bit about, you know, why'd you create creator CPA and kind of what are some of the things that as people start to monetize as a creator, they need to think about.
PT: Yeah.
Sure, yeah. There's there's sort of the process of creating as a creator and putting the content out there, come up with the ideas, all that.
But there's also sort of the business that you're running, right? So you're developing platform revenue, sponsorship revenue, maybe have you a you have a service on the side. So ultimately it's a business. You know, you're good at getting attention and at some point you can turn that into a business if you want to. You don't have to, but we're not talking to the hobbyists here. We're talking to the creators who want to be entrepreneurs. And so you have a business and so you need to treat it, you know, in a way that's respectful toward the it being a business. So you need to protect it legally.
You need to set it up for financial success. You need to be able to see what's happening in the business and on the financial side. You need to you know, report, you know, your taxes and you need to make plans for your taxes so that you get ahead of that and you don't pay Uncle Sam too much every year, you know, so that you can kind of minimize what your tax burden is. So that's kind of the process that the creator CPA goes through. We help folks set things up, even down to get them a bank account, their EIN number.
Do their books, their payroll, help them think through what kind of entity they should be. But every creator is gonna have to go through that, you know, re you know, get real business moment. And so that's kind of the some of the things we talk about on that platform, but also we serve fifty about fifty five creators on a monthly basis now that need our kind of full services. That's kind of what we're doing for them. But we hope you know creators discover, you know, tax deductions that they might not be getting that they should be. You know, kind of plans to think about retirement savings and how that interacts with their business. Yeah, just all kinds of things in that space. So it's it's so important. You know, we catch a lot of creators early on and they're before you know it, they're making a ton of money off the platform and they haven't paid any taxes, haven't filed any taxes, they don't have anything set up, you know. So things you gotta do, right, are separate those personal and business expenses and finances. So have that separate business bank account. Ideally, you get that LLC set up in the state where you're doing business. So you're legally protected. That LLC sets you up for future moves down the road from a tax standpoint. You gotta be doing the bookkeeping so that you can kind of see how well the business is doing, and that makes filing your taxes a lot easier too.
And then you gotta pay your taxes, you know, on a quarterly basis, ideally, but definitely every year when you file those tax returns. So, you know, it's kind of boring stuff to a degree, but if there's a way to optimize it and to make it interesting in a way that, you know, can benefit the creator, I think, long term. So that's why I was excited to get back into business and what I did was I took over the CPA firm that my father had built and started marketing essentially to content creators. So that's kind of how I got into it.
Back into it, but that's what we do. Yeah, the creator CPA dot com.
When Should a Creator Hire a CPA?
Justin: What point in a creator's money making journey should or would it be beneficial for them to engage with creator CPA services? Is it, you know, a certain dollar amount, a certain like 'cause even me at kind of the like I have a CPA, but I feel like I could benefit from someone who actually understands the type of work I'm doing now.
PT: Question. Yeah.
Justin: So I'm just curious what you would recommend like when would in their money making journey as a creator would they engage with your services at Creator CPA?
PT: Yeah, a couple of places. One when they are tired of doing it themselves, or two, I would say when they feel like they're not maximizing the sort of their tax savings. So that's sort of the behavioral time to do it. Monetarily, with a typical creator's monthly, you know, price to work with them, I would say anywhere around sixty, seventy thousand in top line revenue a year is when it kind of makes sense. 'Cause that's when the services we can provide actually put money back in your pocket. So we actually saving you by the strategies and the things we're doing. So there's a there's sort of the
We're doing the annoying stuff for you part so you don't get in trouble with the IRS or your state. And then two, you're actually saving money because of the things we chose to do instead of you just trying to figure it out, you know, yourself. So that's kind of the two part way of answering that. But yeah, around the sixty, seventy K mark. I mean, you're a business as soon as you know, put that serious business hat on and say this is what I want this is what I'm doing as a business, you know, as soon as you earn that first dollar, so to speak, or even after even when you start going after that first dollar.
You put that ad block up or you offer up that subscription or you know you pursue business, that's when it you know, that's when you kind of become a business owner and then you know, obligations with the state and federal government usually come right after that. So, you know, you need to be doing it as soon as you make your first dollar, but in terms of working with the CPA, having someone do it for you, that's usually around the 60, 70k mark.
W is when it's like perfect. You can start before then, but that's when it's like okay, it really makes sense at that point.
Justin: Yeah, I had to learn this the hard way with my podcast is hiring help to do the work that you don't wanna fucking do.
PT: Yeah.
Justin: Right. I don't produce my own podcast. I have a producer who does all the post production. And one of the reasons it took me so long to start a podcast is because for years I would tell myself I would learn how to edit audio and video files. And I never did. And but I got around that by hiring help. And I think for me, I have like PTSD from taxes, and so
I don't do like this. This is why I have a CPA now. And I think, you know, when you as a creator, you want to use your energy to do what you're best at, which is creating content. You don't want to use your creative energy to do taxes and all the stuff that goes on the business, the finance business side of being a creator, because that is wasted creative energy that could be.
Utilize to make that next piece of content that pushes your business forward. And I think a lot of people have to learn that the hard way because especially in the personal finance space, because I think by default nature, a lot of us are DIY people. Like we I can figure out how to do this myself. But one of the things that really unlocked me and my own journey of entrepreneurship
And being a creator is getting help with the things that I don't want to do or that I don't that aren't that don't excite me, that are energy draining. And I can tell you taxes and bookkeeping is very draining to most people. So if you can hire somebody to do that part of the business so you can focus your energy on doing the stuff that you love to do, it's gonna make you infinitely more successful.
PT: I love it. Good advice.
How Financial Independence Changes as an Entrepreneur
Justin: Boom. Cool. So as a multiple business owner, I'm just curious how has your definition of financial independence changed after building FinCon? You also have TravelCon, you have Creator CPA. Like I'm just curious how your own definition of financial independence has changed as a multifaceted entrepreneur.
PT: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. You know, early on I would say it was about maximizing tax savings, you know, so that to me that's where that's where I felt like I was at least like moving myself toward a positive place. But I just didn't have a I didn't have a lot of purpose, you know. And I it wasn't until I allowed myself to say, Well, I'm doing this because I could become a full time entrepreneur and then I could experience freedom in my life and limited freedom.
But a to a degree that, you know, I've been able to enjoy since twenty ten. So when twenty tw ten came around, it was no longer about fast tracking a retirement date because I feel like I was doing what I enjoyed to do. And it was enjoy you know
And so I was free, you know, in twenty ten, because I'd set myself up to make that leap, once I made that leap, I felt free. I felt, Okay, well there's nothing after like why would I retire? Like I love doing this, you know.
But I also knew that there would be a point in my life where I maybe it couldn't do it, or maybe my priorities had shifted, or maybe I had kids and I had bigger goals for them. Or so, you know, I was aware enough, I guess, to realize that so that's what's changed. As new businesses have come into my life, that brought new risk. It brought employees in their families. I've had kids, you know, we have three kiddos. They're now in high school and they all go to a school we have to pay for and then you know we're gonna have college as well coming up. So financial independence has changed in the sense of when it was just my wife and I it was pretty simple and straightforward, you know, freedom and then keep everything frugal and don't spend it much and hey, we feel free, you know. But now a lot more things have been thrown into it. So, you know, there's more needs that have come along.
I would say, you know, but it's it's still it still comes down to me just being able to pursue the things that, you know, currently I want to do, how I want to spend my time. You know, I wake up and I want to do this, and I know the things I need to do as a 50 year old, which is spend some time working out each week, you know, walk, getting my steps in, eating right, getting my sleep. And so it's like build that first. And then if some business can fit in and around that, and if better yet, if those businesses can strategically interact even better because now I've got things that are sort of helping to you know propel each other forward. But you know, I'd I'm fifty now. I would love to be done with everything probably around fifty five and then like fully be able to say like okay there's nothing I have to do. The things I have to do right now are because I because they involved an employee. You know, I hired someone to do start doing stuff with and
I don't want to stop that because now I have people who rely on that. It may come to that one day. But you know, I'd love to I'd love to keep those projects going and maybe until I can potentially part ways to another buyer or, you know, maybe even sell them to the employees themselves. But yeah, financial independence, it's about it's about family for me, spending time with them, spending time doing the things I want to pursue.
And you know, kind of having a an a enough white space on the palette for me to constantly be able to if I want to, go create something new, you know, and do fun things with. 'Cause that's that's fun for me, is having space to create. So
Justin: Yeah, I think entrepreneurship, especially building an online business, is in my opinion the fastest way to financial freedom. Because if you're if you build a business that is yours online and it's around something that you're truly interested in,
Even if you haven't hit your fine number of, you know, a few million or whatever your fine number is, but you make enough money to cover your cost of living and you're doing work that you're passionate about and you own the business, you're free. Even if you have a zero net worth, but you make enough money to cover your cost of living. And this is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about the creator.
Economy is because you can build a business as a creator around anything. I've seen the craziest things like people building $20,000, $30,000 months doing courses on maintaining house plants. And they're just passionate about ha house plants. I'm like, that's so fucking cool. And that person doesn't need to have a million and a half invested in low-cost index funds.
She's making twenty to thirty thousand dollars a month. That should support her lifestyle. And you know, obviously, is it's a much harder journey. There's a lot more risk, right? You're probably gonna work a lot more in the first, you know, one to three years. But I think becoming a creator, building a business around an interest, you could literally become financially free in one to three years. And that is amazing. And
Again, like you could be making you could have a net worth of zero, but you make enough to support your living and you're doing something that you're truly passionate about and you own the business. Like that's pretty fucking amazing. And so that's one of the reasons I was, you know, one of my business partners who's helping me build out the back end of my online business. He's not in the personal finance space, but I told him you need to come to FinCon because you will meet so many people that.
Want what you can do, which is building the back end, all the automation, all the email sequences, all the landing pages, all the things that you know, a TikToker or a YouTuber don't want to build for their business. You could do all that for them. So, you know, even if you're not in the personal finance space, but you're in the online business space, I think attending FinCon.
Is really powerful because there are there's a whole nother side to the creator kind of economy, which is the back end side. And those are the people who love to, you know, build the websites, build the email sequences, you know, all the deadline funnels and all the crazy shit that makes an online business work and be really profitable and really efficient. So anyways, I've just
I love that you've gone on this first it was kind of this Fi journey, then this crater journey, and now it's like all together. And you know, I'm kind of curious, just one last question before we kind of wrap this up related to this. Did entrepreneurship speed up your path to Fi, complicate it, or both?
PT: A little of both. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I never made more money in my life than I did between probably twenty twelve and twenty nineteen. So I made a lot of money during that time and that was all entrepreneurship. It was all risk taking, putting myself out there, building an event.
Justin: Okay.
PT: Building the blog, having that kind of max out. So that was like golden era. And that was enough to like set us up. You know. If I do if I earn don't earn another dollar, you know, we'll we're we're set for retirement. You know, it's just a matter of when we want to pull that trigger and how much we need to offer our kids, you know, for help. So yeah, I would say I would say definitely a mix of both, but man, entrepreneurship, the it has a much higher top end.
Than what I was doing in my life, you know. I was gonna be limited always by what the boss would pay me. So once I opened the gates myself, I could make with it what I want. I can lose a lot of money, but I can make a lot of money too.
Justin: Yeah. And I think, you know, you touched this on this in your interview you did with Justin and Cody from the person from the Financial Independence Show, but just how important it is to have your personal finances together as an entrepreneur because, you know, if you're not careful, you can end up losing much more money than you make. And I think you know, I think it's really good to have your personal finances together as an entrepreneur.
PT: Hundred percent.
PT Money's Tip, Tool, and Strategy for Fitness, Money, and Life
Justin: So let's land this plane. I at the end of every interview I like to ask the guest to share a tip, tool, or strategy for fitness slash health, money slash wealth, and life slash happiness. So what do you got for us, PT?
PT: All right. So fitness first. Fitness, I'm gonna go with what I call kill it with protein. So this works for me. It's about not because I like I'm a sweets guy. I do like that kind of stu. I like sometimes I can get in cycles of eating poorly, but when I'm eating my best, it's because I've started the day and started every meal with protein. And so just by starting with protein for the as much as possible and trying to get you know, I would say seventy five percent of my weight in grams of protein a day helps me feel full. It helps me feel like you know, I'm keeping my muscle mass as a fifty year old and it satiates, those taste buds. And so
Even when I do feel like, okay, now I've here we're coming up on another meal or snack time or whatever and I wanna, you know, reach for something bad first, I tell myself, okay, I'll have a protein, small protein shake first, or I'll have a boiled egg, or I'll have a piece of jerky. And if I still want that other thing after I've had those things, then yeah, that's a tip you've probably heard before. That's really been working for me lately. So
Justin: Yeah. I don't think anyone's mentioned it on the show, but in my own fitness coaching practice, that's one of the things I teach every single client is every single meal needs to be focused on protein. Because my experience as a coach is people undereat on protein and overeat on carbs. Yeah. And so if you just like you said, make protein a priority.
PT: Yeah, it's natural for me to do that, so
Justin: Then it has this cascading positive effect on your fitness. So I love that. Thank you for sharing it.
PT: Yeah. Yeah, and since February I'm down about twenty, twenty five pounds and it's come from that approach as well as walking ten K steps a day. So thanks, man. Yeah.
Justin: Hell yeah, brother. Congrats.
PT: I wanted to contribute something to the fit part of your show. So that would that was it. Secondly, on finances is you might have heard this one before, but it's it's to pay yourself first. And there's a little twist to this. Open the account. So a lot of people say, you just need to automate everything and so i everyone's head maybe this man, I've gotta go open a bank, I've gotta you know, do all this stuff, set up all this. The first step is just opening the account. So even if you don't have the funds to pay yourself first right now, and what I mean by this is as soon as you get your paycheck or your source of income, the first thing you do is take the first fruits of that and put it over into a savings account, investing account, and other funds that you need that are going to help you reach your long term goals. All right. So the process of doing that, if you set that up automatically,
You're more likely to do that thing and for that to stick. That worked in my own life. Just I wish I could automate my health, man. It would be like gravy. I'd be the buffest, fittest looking dude. But I you know, with finances, you can do that. You know, you can really set things up in motion. But, you know, there's still in your head, I think, this idea that it's it's this elaborate thing you got to set up. Well, the first thing you have to do is just open that account up.
So go open that brokerage account, go open that IRA, go open the bank, the savings account at the online place. Just go open the account. So if you do nothing after hearing this, sitting through this podcast, just open that savings account, that investment account. Just get it open. Don't worry about how much to contribute. Don't worry about what to invest in yet. Just have the place. Because I found if you have the place, then when you are motivated down the road or you're ready to invest, you'll have somewhere for that to go. So go get the account open.
Justin: Yeah, I love it. So actionable too, 'cause honestly these days it takes I've done it with multiple coaching clients live over Zoom. To open a brokerage account, you can get it done in three to five minutes. So fast.
PT: Awesome. Love it. Love it. Last thing is appeal to this is for life. Lil appeal to a higher authority. I found more high happiness and joy in my life when I divorce myself from the results or from luck or from things that come at me or problems that arise or what my future holds. If I give it to my God, I'm a Christian, so giving it to my Christian God.
And allowing him to have that authority for those dis for those decisions and the power in that. It removes a lot of that anxiety and stress in my normal daily life. So I think if you can find a higher authority to appeal to, if it's not the Christian Jesus God that I serve, it's a different one or a different thing to appeal to, have something outside of your person that you're appealing to that removes that pressure and that self focus I think oftentimes that can spiral people into a negative place. And I've been there myself, even as a believer. So I think but I think by that posture it allows me to live a happier life.
Where to Find Philip “PT Money” Taylor Online
Justin: I love it. PT Prime Time, Philip Taylor. Way to fucking go, brother. I really appreciate you sharing your journey to being a creator, creating FinCon, being a multifaceted entrepreneur, and ending this show, encouraging everyone to connect with something higher than themselves. I'm a firm believer in that as well. And you can find you know.
A way to do that is personally meaningful for you. So last question, if people wanna connect with you online, what's the best place for them to go?
PT: Yeah, just Google PT Money. You'll find all my stuff, my LinkedIn, my Instagram, although I don't do much there. And who knows, I might have a threads up pretty soon. So check me out on threads at PT Money. And but we've talked a lot about FinCon, so it's at FinConExpo dot com. And then the creator CPA is just that at dot com. So
Justin: Awesome.
Awesome. We'll put links to all those in the show notes. Make it easy for you to just go into the show description and connect with PT in multiple different ways. I last note want to highly encourage everyone who's at all interested in being a creator in any capacity to come to FinCon. It is an incredible experience. I already have my ticket. I'm so excited for Palm Springs.
FinCon in September. I'll be there. PT will be there. All your favorite creators in the personal finance space will be there. And it is such a blast. And it doesn't matter if you don't even have a social media profile, but you're interested in being a creator, just come.
PT: Thanks, Justin. Appreciate having me on, man.
Justin: Awesome. Thanks. Likewise, brother.