Are you starting to earn more money in your business than ever before, but at the end of the month you’ve got nothing to show for it?

Well this is Caroline from CarolineCain.com and today I’m going to talk about precisely this topic, because quite a few of my clients lately who have reached around the $10k a month mark get on the phone with me and say, “Hang on, where’s all that money gone? I’ve got nothing to show for it?”

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That can be quite unexpected when you suddenly imagine you’re going to have all this money and you’ll be able to go out and buy all these beautiful clothes and you’ll do all these luxurious things, and that’s just not really the way that it looks.

The problem is that we have expectations. You get excited because you imagine the kind of life that you’ll look around your flat, and things will be different, your clothes will be different. And actually when you get there, you look around and your flat is pretty much the same, yes you’ve bought a few really nice items of clothing or shoes, or perhaps you stayed in a 5-star hotel instead of a regular hotel as you might have done before, but your life doesn’t actually feel that different.

I really want to be honest about what it does look like when you get to those $10k months, and how much that actually does or doesn’t change life. Because you often hear talk about, “Oh, once you reach 6-figures and suddenly you’re living in luxury and everything’s so different!” and of course, the reality is not quite like that.

And of course this is going to depend on your values and also your family situation. If you’re single and you’re earning that kind of money, then obviously you’re going to have a lot more spare cash. If you have kids in school or you want to homeschool or send them to private school or if you travel a lot, really it’s going to depend on what your ideal lifestyle looks like for you.

But what it really comes down to, that I want to talk about here, because this is more general, is that the more money you make in your business, the more you’re going to want to outsource. You’re going to want to perhaps want a copywriter, a video editor, someone to set up webinars for you, a technical person, a website person, a designer or a new website or you’re going to get branded photos done.

So you see, all of these things add up so the more money you’re making, the more things you can actually tick off your manifesting list or your desire list, and the more support you’re going to want to bring on. At home as well—perhaps you’re going to want to increase your childcare hours, or perhaps you want to start getting your hair done or hire a stylist, or perhaps have a cleaner regularly. And so the actual spendable cash that you have left might not be as much as you thought. Again, very much depending on your family situation.

So what tends to happen is that in the beginning, when you start earning more, is that you’re really ticking those things off and laying a foundation, up leveling, upgrading certain things in your life and in your business. And it’s after that that you get to a stage where you can start putting money aside and start thinking about ways to be cleverer with your money, or multiple income streams, and that kind of thing.

So really my tip for you today is to really anchor in when you think about your monthly target income goal, is to really think about very specific things that you want that money for. So lifestyle things, business things, and that way you won’t just be spending the money to pay off debts or to up level things, you’ll really consciously be deciding where that money goes and of course you’ll have a lot more satisfaction from it. Because maybe that means saving up for a holiday rather than always just upgrading what you already have. Maybe what you already have is fine for now, and what you really want is the holiday. So just get really clear on what you want that money for, and then you’ll have a much greater feeling of satisfaction with it.

And what I really want you to share in the comments below here today, is if you had an extra $5k to spend in your business this month, or to spend because that suddenly arrived in your business, you made more than you were expecting or hoping to make, what would you spend it on?