The One About Ws

Writing them down is important

TL;DR

I gave you my list of my Ls in the last edition.

Here are some Ws from 2025:

• I was able to accept an emergency teaching position in 8th grade Algebra 1 for the first 2 weeks of this school year. I had over 100 kids, including my oldest son. It was such a hectic thrill. Teachers really do have the hardest jobs. And it forced me to be so much more efficient with my business because I had so much less time to work.

• In 2025, I made a total of ~$2,000 a substitute teacher (I don’t do it for the $17/hour!). I averaged about 1.5 days per month (excluding the 2 weeks where I was the lead Algebra 1 teacher). I did plenty of unpaid field trips and class party days at school, too. Assuming the Lord’s sovereign plan is to keep me and my children alive and healthy, I only have 7 more years of this sort of thing. I know it will fly by. And honestly, I’d do it all for free.

• I accepted a position as an assistant softball coach to help our school stand up a middle school softball team. Tryouts are in 2 weeks! This is probably the #1 thing I am excited about for 2026. So uncomfortable. So hard to do well. The things that give me butterflies in my stomach are the things that make me feel alive.

• I was a speaker at Scaling New Heights accounting conference this past summer in Orlando. I taught about my group membership model in my firm and how other accounting pros can think about implementing a One-to-Many service in their firms. This gig got me a free conference ticket, one of the hotel nights, and a generous speaker’s stipend. All to talk about something I am excited about and really believe in.

• I bought an Oura ring (that you might remember I made myself “earn” by selling FreshBooks Office Hours memberships) and have done over 10,000 steps a day since December 2024 (I used my phone to track it before I got the ring). And I know you think I am exaggerating (“she surely means most days”) but I am not lying. Every.Single.Day. It was so hard! Do you know just how few steps a normal laptop worker like me takes on an average day? For me, I would get like 3-4k max.

  • Relatedly, my Oura ring told me I got 107 naps, which it says puts me in the expert napping category. And I surely took more because I didn’t get the ring until March. Measuring wealth by steps and naps, I’d say I am in the top 1%. I am so grateful and do not want to take anything about my life for granted.

• My revenue for Heritage Business Services (so I am talking about client-related $$) is higher than it has ever been, and I have not worked any more than I normally do.

• I started the “Behind The Hustle” interview series so that I could get real life stories of bookkeeping entrepreneurs out into the public. I think it is the most important thing I have done for this profession in a long time. These stories are going to inspire people who should be bookkeeping entrepreneurs and (helpfully) discourage people who should not be. I am proud of this project.

• I updated my Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook for the first time in 3 years. That was possible because I escaped for a little 24 hour get away, which I told you about here and highly recommend if you have a big project that would best be handled by a “sprint” work session.

• 2025 is the first year that I came up with a plan to hire someone parttime to work closely with me on a regular basis to help run my business (you can read the archive from late 2024 where I documented my entire process of finding this Operations Coordinator role). The entire experience will make me better at doing it a second time, which I plan to try again in 2026. But y’all, I made enough money to pay someone regularly. I have created a business that allowed me to help provide for another family. That is wild.

• My business sponsored our school fundraising auction. And it sponsored the 250th Navy Ball here in Fort Worth. It felt so legit to be strategic with that advertising expense for things that we are invested in anyway. And my business name was displayed so prominently at both events. Who am I???

• I started a mastermind group with 2 other bookkeeping entrepreneurs which I had been wanting to do for over 3 years! This group has been very dear to me personally, but it also provided value to my business. Because owning a business can get very lonely. We pretty much copied the model of what the folks in this interview about how they run their own mastermind group did. YouTube tells me only 600 people have watched that 21 minute interview and it should be 6,000 people because the idea is that important. Please don’t do business alone.

Those are some of the Ws for Kate Josephine Johnson for 2025. In no particular order.

And now they are documented. You can ask me any questions about them that you like. I’m a pretty open book.

I recommend taking the time to document yours.

The things on this list above are all possible because I took the scary and uncomfortable step of starting a bookkeeping business several years ago. And just didn’t stop.

I wrote the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook to help people who are dreaming similar dreams, but feel like they don’t know where to start (or need a better restart). There are 4 steps. Uncomfortable steps. Difficult steps. But it has all been worth it. You can use code STACK to get a discount. Treat yourself a nerdy T-Account Cheat Sheet mousepad while you are at it. My guess is that it will be one of your favorite things.

---

Deals Deals Deals

💰 Bookkeeper Launch is offering their Premier version for the price of the Pro version. Check out the extras you get with the Premier vs the Pro* here. It applies to the full-pay or 12-month pay options. And there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. To claim the deal, you add the Premier version to your cart and add the code upgradenow500 and it knocks the price down. You also get The Marketing Arsenal ($1,500 value) for free.

💰 5MB Academy has an 18% discount on all courses* with code 5MBYE25. The Diagnostic Review System and the QBO Cleanup System are her best sellers. I took the QBO Diagnostic Review Course and then amended it to my own FreshBooks Diagnostic Reviews and I

💰If you have a goal of hiring help for client work in 2026, you can use code BSH15OFF to get 15% off the skills assessments from Accountests*. A very small investment in a test like this could save you so much heartache from hiring someone who does not know bookkeeping.

💰 Use code cleanupclearance for the QBO Cleanup Course from Akadian*. It is on such a huge sale right now because they will be doing their annual update, which all current students of the course get the updates for. You can start studying on the current version, and then speed through the updated version when it comes out.

Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.

---

Be There or Be Square

Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.

📅 January 6: 1099s in QBO with Alicia Katz-Pollock. Save your spot here*.

📅+January 7: Behind The Hustle: Andrea Forte. Behind The Hustle continues in 2026 and I’m kicking it off with Andrea Forte. Watch the 2026 interviews HERE. And SUBSCRIBE to catch all the new ones.

📅+January 28: Behind The Hustle: Karl Strube. SUBSCRIBE to the YouTube channel to watch this interview. He has built a very niche business all focused on serving clients that have equity compensation. So niche! So nerdy! I can’t wait to learn about it.

📅 May 4-6: GrowCon in Utah. THE Conference EXCLUSIVELY for OWNERS of Bookkeeping, Tax & Accounting Companies.

📅 May15: Wave-Seattle. See what happens when Erin Pohan brings together a community of forward-thinking women in accounting and finance who are shaping the future of our industry.

📅 June 14-17: Scaling New Heights in Orlando. I’m attending and have a ticket for my husband. Who else will be there?

---

Featured Posts

🌶️ Iesha H. wondered how you handle it when a client pushes back on price increases.

🌶️ Diane J. asked why you need a full tech stack beyond the bookkeeping software like QBO or Xero since there is already so much built in to those softwares. Great explanations and everyone started sharing their exact stack. How did you know when you needed more than what the software offered?

• And as a reminder, I ask the same 7 questions to all the guests that come on the Behind The Hustle series and the 4th question is “What is your tech stack?” Because it is so much better to learn about the pros and cons of certain apps from peers who are actually using them to make a good living.

---

Help You Hustle

💪 Melissa Harman is hitting 6 figures while still holding her day job. What are your main takeaways from her bookkeeping entrepreneurship journey? Comment directly on Substack or on the YouTube video.

---

Jobs

💼 Be sure to use #jobopp when posting jobs in the Facebook group. No new jobs - but you can still check out the Job Guide HERE.

Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.

---

My Family Circus (44F, 41M, 14M, 12F, 11M)

🎪 My favorite interaction with my mother-in-law that is one of my main life goals

I was 26 years old when I got married. I wasn’t a complete nitwit in the kitchen, but it’s never been a place where I felt like I excelled.

But when it came time for my shiny, new husband and I to host his parents for a visit for the first time in our little apartment in Navy flight school, I felt a little pressure and wanted to step it up a notch in the kitchen.

Don’t let your imagination run too wild. It was just a taco bar.

But as a part of the spread, I tried my first attempt at making Mexican rice.

And let me tell you, this little Gringa totally missed the mark.

It was truly terrible.

What was all the way cooked was stuck to the bottom of the pan. And the rice that was not stuck to the pan was not fully cooked and was legitimately crunchy.

I don’t remember crying, but I remember being very stressed.

My sweet and helpful husband kept us on course to put the food on the table and just hope for the best and we apologized over and over for how unappetizing it was. “Sorry it is so crunchy. We tried to serve you the best parts.”

But here’s the memorable part…

My mother-in-law went back for seconds on the rice.

Not with a bunch of fan fare. Just quietly back through the line of the taco bar and it included a second scoop of that terrible rice.

I felt like I was a part of an age old moment where an older woman has a chance to either build up or tear down the next generation.

And she chose to love and encourage a younger woman who was just trying her best at being a good wife.

It is something I have held in my heart since that day. It is one of my dearest moments with her. One I have made my kids listen to me tell several times.

Because not only did her actions greatly encourage me in the moment, it taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten…

No matter what it tastes like, you go back for second helpings in that young adult’s house.

Maybe one day I will tell her what it meant to me.

I can’t wait for the chance to be invited to visit my grown children in their future homes and just casually go back for seconds of bad food. There are few things in life that I want more than that.

---

Kate Builds In Public

🎢 See above for my Wins and see this previous edition for my Losses. It is such a privilege to share my journey with you. I trust that the people who need to read these stories will read them at the exact time when they need them. Feel free to share any thing I write with someone who you think might need to read it. Substack makes it very easy to share.

---

From The Vault

⚡Thinking about hiring your kid in 2026 - watch how I put my child to work and what he does for me.

---

Letters To The Editor

✉️Thanks for the kind words Barbara!

In the age of resource overload - very much enjoy your newsletter insights and compilations.

---

Classifieds (Clickable)

Keep hustling!

Kate

-Chief Hustler-

---

Get your copy of The Bookkeeping Side Hustle Guidebook: Actionable Steps To Becoming A Virtual Bookkeeping Without The Overwhelm

Easy and FREE ways to support Bookkeeping Side Hustle

Follow @BookkeepingSide on Twitter

Subscribe on YouTube

---

I am down right rabid about transparency and full disclosure. If a link, including Amazon Links, has a * beside it, it means it is either an affiliate link where I might receive compensation if you make a purchase, at no additional charge to you. Or it could be a tracking link that another business provided me to see how many readers click on that link.