Living On 980K A Year in Seattle, WA | Millennial Money

I got my first paycheck Google AdSense paycheck when I was about 14 for 500 I never imagined that YouTube would become as lucrative of a career as it has for so many people 2022 was definitely my best and busiest year I've ever had with YouTube my name is Shelby church I'm 28 living in Seattle and you're watching Millennial money well sort of CNBC has never actually reached out to me so I just made my own if you guys have never seen Millennial money it's a documentary series by CNBC where they show how much money people make and how they budget it so that is why the style of this video is going to be pretty different than most of my videos alright I hope you guys enjoy let's get into it [Music] foreign usually starts between 6 30 and 7 30 a.m I never actually set an alarm I just wake up at that time I grab some coffee and I'm usually straight to my laptop for the first hour or two of the day I usually spend about eight to nine hours a day working on videos it is around that 40 hour a week Mark that most people work but I can tell if I've been slacking one week I'll be scrambling Saturday morning to try and finish a thumbnail it does take a long time to make my videos I like to get a lot of b-roll and interview shots they're time consuming for sure usually around 5 PM is where when I wrap everything up I like to wind down in the evening and just actually enjoy my evening foreign it really is so different what I spend each month if I'm traveling and producing a lot of videos that month it's going to be a lot more my rent here I pay 2 750 every month for my share of this apartment so I do share it with my sister so she can film in here and she has a room that she can like set up as an office the utilities are only like forty dollars a month here it's my car is paid off so I have no monthly payments I even charge it for free because I I've referred so many people from my Tesla videos I spend a lot on food I've been cooking at home more but it's probably like 800 to a thousand dollars a month I like going to dinner with people and getting a drink and I'm gonna live my life like food is something I am I love spending money on to be honest I love going out to eat it's so fun travel is something I spend a lot on because my video ideas just take me all over America I try and use credit card points for my flights but hotels are expensive and over the summer I had my videographer travel with me so I was paying for her flight in her hotel and food and everything there so I mean there were months where I was spending like eight to ten thousand dollars on travel I'm not spending that much on travel right now I've really scaled things back [Music] I moved to Seattle exactly a year ago I am from here so it is nice to be near some of my siblings that live here and friends that I've known forever it's also a lot less expensive to live here I've noticed restaurants if you're getting drinks everything is like 20 cheaper than when I lived in La housing is less expensive too I'm about to move and it's going to be way cheaper but the biggest thing is not paying state income tax I would be lying if that wasn't a factor of wanting to move when I realized that I could save like over thirty thousand dollars by not living in California I mean that's enough to have an apartment in California that you live in part-time it was kind of a no-brainer at that point thirty thousand dollars is a ton of money that you know 10 years ago that's what I made in a year so I do have an Airbnb if you've followed along you know it hasn't been the most profitable Investments we didn't quite Break Even because we had more maintenance than expected it was about thirteen thousand dollars split between me and my sister I had to pay six thousand dollars to have that Airbnb I used to think an Airbnb would be like a no-brainer look so profitable and the truth is it's harder for to make them profitable than you would expect especially now [Music] I do think that eventually I'll be able to break even on that property I'm getting solar panels bookings have been amazing lately there's so many expenses you don't think about Landscaping pool cleaners it's so much more than the mortgage I still think it's gonna work out in the long term but the first year wasn't that profitable it was not it wasn't profitable on average I would say the last three years I've made somewhere between three to five hundred thousand dollars a year but 2022 was something else entirely that was my busiest year it was really stressful I made 981 000 in 2022 it just sounds crazy to say that that was a goal for me was to make a million dollars in a year before taxes and business expenses so it's really like half that so I do have to pay taxes on that money like I said and business expenses like tax preparation hiring that videographer that was you know a significant amount I think it was about thirty thousand dollars I did also invest in some new equipment I was so hesitant about doing this but I'm so glad I did it was expensive this laptop is like maxed out but it's so fast and the monitor does make it so I'm way faster at editing so this stuff it was an investment truly but it's been super worth it my taxes for this last year are not finished yet so I've been saving for a huge payment for that I've been paying quarterly to but since I don't live in California anymore I do keep more of it and it not gonna lie it's pretty awesome it's easy to look at YouTubers and think that it's not work because it's fun to watch a video but it is a lot of work actually creating videos especially the more documentary style ones where you're going and interviewing people it's it's work and a lot of times I'm wearing multiple hats I'm doing the sound I'm setting up tripods and I'm the interviewer like I think part of the reason that I make a good amount is because I'm doing like three or four four jobs in one if I were to hire out all these things I wouldn't make nearly as much like I could hire an editor a sound person a videographer for every video but I find that I can do it myself just fine I actually kind of prefer that a lot of the time I work with videographers from time to time but right now with there being more of a recession I haven't been honestly [Music] when I was 18 I was living off of YouTube I was making like thirty thousand dollars a year but I could see how it's like this Snowball Effect was growing more and more when I was in Community College a lot of the teachers there just encouraged me to not transfer to a four-year school so they gave me the confidence to not transfer they really could see where things were going people were moving more towards YouTube than traditional film and TV but I never finished College I don't have any student loans I mean when I went to Community College it was like three thousand dollars a semester it wasn't that expensive by the time I was 21 I made like around a hundred thousand dollars a year and then there there were years that it was a little less a little more it Ebbs and flows that is just like the nature of owning your own business my big Financial goal these days is to buy a primary residence that I live in I rent here and I don't want to be a renter forever I want to own a place that I live in yes I have my Airbnb but if I were to go back in time I don't know if I would do that again to be honest I love the idea of buying a house I want to fix it up renovate it make it exactly how I want it and I want to pay off the whole thing before the 30-year mortgage I love the idea of not having a mortgage there's just something the psychological aspect of that I think would be very worth it I know people really are all about leveraging their money in all these ways but I think that there's something something to be said for the psychological aspect of paying off that mortgage and just the freedom that would come with that like you don't have those golden handcuffs anymore if I didn't want to do YouTube I wouldn't have to really but I think I still would I would just like use copyrighted music I don't think I'm too far off from you know buying a house but with the way interest rates are right now I am waiting a little longer and trying to save as much as I can for a place I really want a renovation project and I want to do some of it myself like I really enjoyed that I've learned a lot with the Palm Springs house and I feel like I could do such a better job and I could do things myself and document it and just share everything I've learned I'm optimistic with how things are looking even though we are you know going into more of a recession like I've still been able to make videos I've just scaled things back and budgeted a little more accordingly I hope that you guys have enjoyed learning a bit more about my finance answers it honestly it's a little scary to put it all out there on YouTube but I do like the transparency I really appreciate people like Graham Stefan who I've learned so much from his videos I know he's watching this and reacting to it hey Graham if a few people can learn from me like that's amazing it's only beneficial for us to be more transparent about finances I think it's really cool that our generation can be like that I do have some more like personal finance related ones that I want to do I don't know it's just been like more interesting to me lately so if you want to see more of those hit subscribe you can follow me on Instagram and stuff if you want and I will see you in my next video bye thank you

Channel: Shelby Church

Views: 304,980

Keywords: shelby, church, millennial money, making money, how to make money on youtube, how much money shelby church makes

Id: -l_oBlWbPEE

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 25 2023