How much should you pay yourself as an entrepreneur?

And why does it matter so much to your business?

So you’ve run your business for a while and you pay your staff a regular wage of course, but you yourself just draw money out of the account as you need it and when it’s available for you to draw, right?

Yep, of course… Why take money out of the business if you can do without it right now? You’ll get yours later, right? And your accountant sorts out what to pay you for the purposes of the tax department at the end of the year, right?

Obviously

NOT!

To take your business to the next level, to reach the next level of maturity and sustainability in your business, you have to start paying yourself a regular weekly or monthly wage, religiously, every month, and you have to start to pay yourself first, before any other bastard gets a cent.

Here’s why it matters so much to the long term health and solidity of your business.

Clearly, a big factor in how much profit your business makes and whether or not the business has the cash to pay it’s bills is how much money you personally draw out of the business at any one time. If your business turns over half a million dollars and you have 4 employees and an office and you pull out $200K…