Blah.  There's that B word again... budget.  Yet it's a question we get often, so we're diving into the nitty gritty of how we pay our bills when there isn't cashflow coming in, and it's a 3 part answer!But first... Entrepreneur.com has a great article titled 15 Business Tips Every Entrepreneur Should Know full of really great tips, which leads us right to todays episode topic: How do we budget for slow months?The question that is NEVER asked is how do we budget for busy months? But they answer is the same for both-- and you have to pay attention to both-- you can't just focus on freaking out in the slow months and trying to make enough money to survive. Instead we use those months to dream and grow in ways we can't when we're super busy.We regulate our finances-- plan for the whole year rather than month to month. It takes a few key things to do this:1) We know what our baseline household budget is for each month. How much money do we really need to pay our bills, eat, and put gas in the car? You HAVE to know this number. You also need to know the high version and the low version. If we had to cut extra things, we know exactly how much we could save... and if we wanted to spend extra, we know exactly how much we typically spend extra and in what categories (entertainment and clothing!).2) We know how much we can pay ourselves and still keep a good business running. We can't short the business to pay ourselves-- that's unsustainable. If we spend all our personal money in the busy months and then still need money during the slow months, then we aren't handling business or personal finances very well. So we choose to pay ourselves off of commission-- when I do a wedding or session, I know exactly what percentage of that I can pay myself.3) When we pay ourselves, I immediately transfer the extra beyond our monthly budget needs to a sinking fund- just an extra savings account we have. I can look at a glance and know how much money we have to play with-- that money can be to carry us through the slow months, or to buy a new car, or to go on vacation, or whatever we want. But most important is to carry us through the slow months.