This post is very tactical. I am walking through how I pay myself as a business owner, as well as how I plan for and pay taxes. The “how I pay myself” portion can be beneficial to anyone with a variable income – meaning you don’t get the same paycheck every month, and the amount of money entering your bank account can sometimes be dramatically different from the month before.

Maybe you have a base salary with commission on top, so your income is higher some months and lower others. That’s what I mean by variable income.

The tax portion of this post is geared toward self-employed people: online coaches, influencers, food bloggers, and anyone who owns a business and pays themselves through it.

When I originally outlined this, I intended to cover how I pay myself first, but because I make sure taxes are covered before I pay myself, it made more sense to start there.

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Part 1: Taxes

With tax day approaching on April 15th, a lot of business owners are hoping they either paid enough in estimated quarterly taxes throughout 2025, or have a good estimate for what they owe if they pay one lump sum. I had no idea what estimated quarterly taxes were when I first started my business, so I didn’t pay them. Now I do, and I want to walk you through how I think about it.

The goal with taxes is to not owe the government more than you’ve already paid, but also not to receive a huge refund. A large refund means you overpaid, and I would rather have that money in my pocket than wait for the government to return it.

Keeping Enough in Business Savings to Cover Taxes

The key point here is that I always keep enough money in my business savings account to cover my next estimated quarterly tax bill. I never let it dip below that number. When April 15th arrives, I pay that tax bill from my business savings account. If that brings the balance below what I’ll need for the next quarterly bill, I chip away at building it back up over the following weeks. This will make more sense once we get into how I pay myself, but the rule is simple: my business savings account always holds at least enough to cover my next estimated quarterly tax bill.

Working with a Tax Advisor

I cannot recommend working with a tax advisor enough. I met with one who reviewed my previous business financials along with my projections for the following year. Based on those actuals and projections, he came up with estimated quarterly tax amounts for me. This means I pay the same amount in both state and federal taxes every single quarter, rather than guessing and hoping I’m close.

Before I had his help, I was tracking my topline revenue, every write-off, figuring out my tax bracket, and paying what I assumed was right. I was actually doing a solid job because I never owed a big amount or received a big refund, but it required a lot of work and the amount I paid each quarter varied. Now the amount is the same each quarter. In some cases it might be slightly more or less than I actually owe, but over 12 months it all balances out. I’ve never been hit with a large tax bill and I’ve never received a large refund. It has taken a lot of stress off my plate.

I still track all my business expenses and send him the categories and totals in a profit and loss statement each year, but it feels like significantly less work, and I no longer stress about whether I’m paying the right amount.

How I File My Taxes

One more thing worth covering before we move on: how I file, because it directly connects to how I pay myself. I file married filing jointly and my income is classified as self-employment income from my LLC. I am taxed as a sole proprietor, not an S-Corp. Without getting too into the weeds, filing as an S-Corp requires you to pay yourself a set salary each month. As a sole proprietor, which is how I file, I have full flexibility to decide what I pay myself month to month.

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Part 2: How I Pay Myself

For context, I am a self-employed personal trainer and nutrition coach with a variable income. My income is generated by my workout app membership subscriptions and my nutrition coaching. It took me a while to figure out what to pay myself, and I am constantly refining my approach over time. My hope is that sharing this saves you some of that trial and error.

A disclaimer upfront: my approach is very conservative. Since my income changes month to month based on the number of app subscribers and nutrition clients, I personally prefer to err on the side of caution. The last thing I want is a tax bill that catches me off guard. Erik and I are also saving for specific goals right now, including home renovations. I’d rather pay myself significantly less than I could. This conservative approach has led to far less stress around money.

One of the greatest financial skills you can develop, both as an entrepreneur and in life generally, is learning to live on less than you make. If you’re an established entrepreneur you probably already have a handle on this, but if you are newer to business ownership, I have a lot of thoughts that may save you some panic and stress.

Tracking Income and Expenses

I know there are software platforms like QuickBooks and Xero, but I personally use a Google Sheet to track income and expenses each month. I have a monthly recurring reminder set for the first Monday of each month to log everything from the previous month.

I go into my spreadsheet, key in my monthly revenue, and document my expenses for that month on a separate tab within the sheet. The income I key in is gross income, meaning total topline revenue before taxes and expenses are taken out.

As mentioned, my income can have very significant fluctuations month to month. I have shifted a lot in my business so far in 2026, so the things that caused the biggest monthly swings are no longer part of what I do, but variability still exists.

What used to create the biggest swings were group coaching launches and Pump Merch launches. I used to host four rounds of group macro nutrition cohorts per quarter. Because those were one-time purchases, they would generate a large upward spike in revenue for that month that would not carry into the next month. The same was true for Pump Merch launches: a new style release would produce a spike that would not hold the following month since I wasn’t launching on a monthly cadence. At the beginning of this year I dissolved both of these parts of my business, which is why the swings are not as dramatic as they used to be.

How I Arrive at My Monthly Pay Number

This conservative approach has not failed us yet. It has allowed us to pay taxes with zero stress, build up our savings account for larger purchases, and consistently invest for the future. Here is exactly how I do it. I look at my last 6 to 9 months of topline revenue (that gross income I mentioned), and from those months I remove any big-swing months that were driven by one-time income. 

Using easy round numbers, here is a fake example based on 9 months of gross income:

• January: $13,000 (group launch)
• February: $6,000
• March: $6,000
• April: $12,000 (group launch)
• May: $6,000
• June: $8,000
• July: $9,000
• August: $12,000 (group launch)
• September: $9,000

The average monthly revenue across all 9 months is $9,000. But January, April, and August were all driven by group coaching launches, which are one-time purchases that do not generate recurring monthly revenue. I remove those big-swing months to find a more realistic baseline. Those months still happened and the income still counts, but I do not want to base my monthly pay on revenue I cannot count on repeating.

When I remove January, April, and August, my average monthly revenue drops to around $7,300. That is about $1,700 less than the $9,000 average that included the launch months. The $7,300 figure is what I use to base my monthly income on, and it is still before taking out any monthly business expenses.

Why This Works for Me

You simply cannot guarantee how a launch will go. I do a yearly financial planning and projection meeting with myself where I estimate how many people will sign up for what I offer and what my monthly revenue will look like, but it is still just a projection. Some months I am very close. Some months I over-project. Some months I under-project. Because my income is variable, a conservative approach gives me a cushion regardless of how a given month plays out.

By taking this approach, there will be months where I am paying myself significantly less than what I actually made. I am never paying myself more than I am making. This ensures I can always cover taxes, monthly operating expenses, and still pay myself an income that Erik and I can spend, save, and give with.

The Mechanics: Business Checking and Savings

I have both a business checking account and a business savings account, each separate from our personal accounts. My payment processor is set up to pay me on a weekly cadence every Monday, and that amount deposits into my business savings account.

Since taxes are already accounted for in savings, I then transfer enough from business savings into business checking to cover my monthly operating expenses. 

My current recurring monthly expenses include:

• My training platform for app workouts
• GSuite
• Canva
• iPhone Storage
• Phone
• ShowIt (my website host)
• ManyChat
• Buzzsprout (podcast host)
• Zapier (backend automations)
• Flodesk
• Peloton Membership

Once taxes and expenses are covered, I pay myself. Rather than just transferring whatever is left over, I set a specific amount each month that stays the same for several months at a time. I do not change it month to month even though my revenue changes. That income, combined with Erik’s monthly income, becomes our total family budget. I dedicated an entire episode to how we build that budget: it is Episode 9, titled “Our Exact Family Budget Breakdown: 6 Steps to Tell Your Money Where to Go.”

I will revisit that 9-month average revenue calculation occasionally to see if my pay amount should be adjusted, but it is not something I change on any regular basis. Paying myself the same conservative amount each month makes budgeting and saving significantly easier.

What Happens to the Money That Builds Up in Business Savings

Those big-swing months still happen, and since quarterly taxes and recurring business expenses do not change month to month, the business savings account naturally builds over time.  

It can be transferred to business checking to cover larger one-time purchases, such as:

• Hiring my business coach
• Renovating our home gym

Or it can be transferred to our personal account, essentially as a bonus:

• Vacations
• Car upgrades
• Home renovations

The Full System: Step by Step

STEP 1 – Calculate my monthly topline revenue number for budgeting purposes by looking at the last 9 months of gross income and removing any big-swing months.

STEP 2 – Have my payment processor pay me on a weekly basis, depositing into my business savings account.

STEP 3 – Keep business savings at or above my next estimated quarterly tax bill at all times. If it dips, I chip away at building it back up quickly.

STEP 4 – Transfer enough from business savings to business checking to cover monthly operating expenses.

STEP 5 – Pay myself a set amount every month and leave the remaining balance in business savings to build over time.

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Final Thoughts

I hope this gives you a lot more confidence around how you can approach paying taxes and paying yourself, whether you own a business or simply have a variable income. This conservative approach is not for everyone, because it is genuinely hard to not want to reward yourself with hard-earned money as it comes in. But living on less than you make provides a kind of peace that is difficult to describe once you experience it.