Made Money This Summer? Here's What to Set Aside Before You Spend It
Before we talk numbers, a personal note: today is my wedding anniversary. Twenty-two years.
And if two-plus decades of marriage teach you anything, it's that the good seasons are exactly when you prepare for the seasons that ask more of you. You build the foundation when things are steady — so it's there when things aren't.
Which, as it happens, is precisely the conversation Maine business owners should be having with their money right now. If you're a contractor, an STR host, or a landlord, July has likely been one of your strongest months of the year. Cash is coming in. The temptation is to treat all of it as spendable.
It isn't. Here's what deserves a claim on your summer earnings before anything else does.
Taxes come first
If your business is profitable, a portion of every dollar you're earning right now already belongs to the IRS and Maine Revenue Services — the only question is whether you set it aside as you go or scramble for it later.
The next checkpoint is close: Q3 estimated tax payments are due September 15th. Pull your Profit and Loss for the year so far, look at your net profit, and compare 25–30% of it (a reasonable starting range for self-employed individuals, including self-employment tax) against what you've already paid in estimates. If there's a gap, your strong summer months are the easiest time you'll ever have to close it.
The mechanic is simple: every time a payout or payment lands, move your tax percentage to a separate account before you touch the rest. What you never see in the operating account, you never accidentally spend.
Build your slow-season reserve
Maine business is seasonal — that's not news to anyone reading this. STR bookings thin out after Columbus Day. Outdoor work compresses when the ground freezes. The rent still comes for landlords, but so do the furnace repairs.
The businesses that move through January comfortably are the ones that treated summer income as partly winter money. A good target: two to three months of operating expenses in reserve. If you know your monthly numbers from your P&L, you know exactly what that figure is — and July and August are when it gets funded.
Reinvest in what's working
If you did a mid-year review last month, you identified something that's performing — a job type with strong margins, a listing that's outbooking expectations, a property that's cash-flowing beautifully. Some of your summer profit should go toward doing more of that.
The order matters, though: taxes and reserves first, growth second. Reinvestment funded by money that was actually owed to the IRS isn't growth — it's a loan you didn't know you took out.
Give the money separate homes
None of this works if everything sits in one checking account. A single balance always looks more spendable than it is.
The fix costs nothing: separate savings accounts — one for taxes, one for reserves — attached to your business checking. Most banks let you open them in minutes. When the tax money and the winter money live somewhere else, your operating balance finally tells you the truth about what's actually available.
Make it automatic
Willpower is a bad system. Percentages are a good one. Decide once — say, 25% of every deposit to taxes, 10% to reserves — and make the transfer every time money lands, or on a fixed weekly schedule. Sixty seconds a week, and by September the decisions have already made themselves.
The bottom line
A strong summer feels great in the moment. A strong summer that's still helping you in February — that's the real win, and the only difference between the two is what you do with the money in the next sixty days.
Set aside for taxes. Fund the slow season. Then enjoy what's left, knowing it's genuinely yours to spend.
Twenty-two years of marriage and one year of business ownership have taught me the same lesson: the long haul is built in the good seasons. Here's to building yours.
McAfee's Bookkeeping works with Maine contractors, vacation rental hosts, and landlords to keep books current and make the numbers — profit, tax estimates, reserves — clear enough to act on. If you'd like help turning a strong summer into a strong year, a free consultation is a good place to start. Schedule here.
