FBC – 218 – This is a LOT harder than making money…

This is a LOT harder than making money.

Today, we are going to talk about something that's way harder to achieve than what most people are after: Making more money.

This is the dragon you actually have to slay without ever realizing it. Sadly, by the time we find out what that is it's already too late.

All the answers are in this episode.

It's just a podcast about money. It's a subject that a lot of people you know, like because this is something that a lot of people are chasing. And if you don't have any money, then it's a little bit complicated, and this is dictating a lot of our decisions.

The subject for today is not actually making money, it's keeping the money. The first step is actually getting the money. Second thing is keeping the money. And a lot of people don't know how to do that because we don't have any financial education or something in schools.

In school, we're not taught how to handle money. Once you have it, what do you do with it? You know how not necessarily have to go and invest it all. You need to invest in this stock option stuff. No, not necessary. There's something that allows you to do something smart with your money.

So it's very sad but some people, who don't have money, will have the same problem even if they had money. So what I mean by this is, if you give them money, they're going to waste money, like super quickly.

So you see these people win the lottery. So you hear all these stories of man. This guy won the lottery and now he's broke, he's living under a bridge. And I'm like, dude, how is that possible, man?

You just won like a hundred million euros or something. How can you be broke? Right. But it's possible. It happens. So basically, I know someone who was handed one hundred and fifty thousand euros. So that's a lot of money I think. I don't know the exchange rate, but in dollars must have been like maybe like one hundred and eighty thousand dollars as of today.

They just wasted it going to nightclubs every day and buying bottles and stuff. The money is gone. And I really don't understand this thing is that while they want to mix me up in this thing like, oh please help.

Well, dude. Well, not really. So, you know, the thing is, you know, the first step is obviously to get the money in the first place. But the most important thing is not how much you make, its how much you keep adding to it.

Why do people, regardless the amount of money you're going to give them, spend money on useless stuff?

When you get your money, you save a little bit of money. Me, what I do is work. I get some money. I will reinvest some of that money in my business to make sure that the business has growth. I will save a little bit of money just so I have some cash flow in case there is something cool I need to invest in or something, or something else happens and I'll have some cash flow.

This is a LOT harder than making money.

But this is not what people are doing. And you end up in situations like this where you're broke and it sucks. And now you have to ask for help. And here's the thing. Here's my take on that. You know, I'm more than happy to help people, right? I'm really more than happy to help people, but it has to be reasonable.

OK, I can't watch you when I've already told you three like hundreds times, like, dude, stop doing that. You know, so you'd need to think about the future and stop spending the money uselessly like this.

You know, beyond me. Right. So don't be that person. You don't want to go broke. So just you make this just one. Change is a slight change. It is just like when you get taxed. Remember what I told you when you get taxed when you have a business, you get taxed after you spend the money.

Just consider yourself a business. You are a business, right? And you and your business are making your life better. All right. This is how we need to see this thing. I am a business. I'm a corporate. I get this money I invest in and stuff. And then I'm going to be taxed, and then I'm going to spend only after I have invested. You'll see. It will make a hole like a big difference.

Making money is a skill. Keeping money is a discipline. Most people develop the first without ever building the second, which is why income alone never solves the problem they think it will solve.

The real financial game is not about your income. It is about the gap between what comes in and what you deploy intelligently. Shrink that gap and everything changes. Ignore it and no amount of income will be enough.

The thing that is far harder than making money, and nobody warns you

Making money is a solvable problem. Keeping your discipline, your relationships, and your sense of self intact while you chase it is the part that breaks most people. I learned that the hard way. The first time real revenue arrived, I thought I had won, and then I watched how quickly it could rearrange my priorities if I let it. Building four companies from a laptop taught me that the money was never the hard part. The hard part was staying the same person who was worth trusting once the numbers got loud. Harvard Business Review has written about how sudden success distorts judgment and relationships if you have no system to anchor you, and I felt every bit of that. I keep myself honest with structure, and I built more than 1,500 automation workflows so the business would not depend on my worst days. I talk through this on my YouTube growth hacking playlist and in the long interviews on my Freedom by Choice podcast. Zapier makes a quieter version of the point: remove the chaos with systems, and you protect the human running the show.

Frequently Asked Questions: Keeping Money as a Solopreneur

Why do people waste money even when they know better? Because spending is emotional and financial planning is rational. Most financial mistakes happen in a moment of impulse or social pressure, not after careful deliberation. The solution is not willpower. It is structure. When you have a system that automatically allocates income before you can spend it, you remove the decision from the moment of temptation entirely.

What is Martin's framework for handling money as a business owner? Treat yourself like a business. When income arrives, reinvest a portion back into growth, set aside a portion as a reserve for future opportunities, and only then spend what remains on personal expenses. This sequence matters enormously. Most people spend first and save whatever is left, which means they save almost nothing. The business-first sequence ensures the business and the future get funded before lifestyle creep has a chance to consume the excess.

How much should a solopreneur save versus reinvest? There is no universal number, but Martin's principle is that both saving and reinvestment should happen before personal spending, not after. The exact percentages depend on your margins, your growth stage, and your risk tolerance. What matters is that the decision is made systematically and in advance, not reactively based on how much happens to be in the account on any given day.

About the Author

Martin Ebongue is the founder of martinebongue.com, an online business and lifestyle design blog focused on helping aspiring entrepreneurs build location-independent businesses. Since 2014, he has been creating and scaling online ventures across multiple niches, from digital products and affiliate marketing to SaaS and content platforms, while traveling the world. He shares the real-world strategies, tools, and systems that work, with a particular focus on AI-powered automation for solopreneurs. Follow him on YouTube, X (Twitter), and Instagram.

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