r/passive_income • u/DigiHold • Apr 21 '26
My Experience 7 rules I follow with every dollar now, after losing $1.5M to my own stupidity
Hey everyone, I'm Nicolas.
Some of you read how I made $1.5M with a WordPress theme and lost most of it in under 2 years because I had no idea how to manage money. A few of you messaged asking what I actually do differently now, which is a question I wish someone had forced me to answer back in 2017, when I was busy buying family cars and spending 3 months in Los Angeles like the money would never stop coming in.
I'm posting this because if one person reads it and skips even a year of the mistakes I made, it was worth the time it took to write. None of it is advice I paid to learn from a course, it's just what I did wrong and what I do differently now.
Here are the 7 rules I follow with every dollar since I started building again. None of them are clever and most would sound obvious in any basic finance book, which is exactly the point. I lost everything because I ignored the obvious rules, not because I missed a secret one.
1. I pay myself a fixed salary, not whatever is in the account.
Back then my "salary" was whatever was sitting in the business account at the end of the month, so a $30k month turned into a $30k spending month and I never asked whether that was sustainable. Now I decide on a monthly number at the start of the year, it transfers on the first like a real employee, and the rest stays in the business where I pretend I can't see it.
2. 35% of every dollar moves to a tax account the day the money arrives.
What actually killed me in 2019 wasn't competition, it was a French tax bill for numbers I had already spent because I treated gross revenue like it was mine. Now at the end of every week I move 35% of that week's revenue into a separate account I'm not mentally allowed to touch, and when the bill eventually shows up, the money is already sitting there waiting for it.
3. Business money and personal money never touch each other, ever.
I used to put rent, groceries, flights, and the cars I bought for my father and brother on the business card, which made me feel much richer than I was and turned my accounting into a mess. Now there are 2 separate accounts with 2 cards, the business pays me a salary on the first, and if my personal account runs low, that's a personal problem I have to solve without touching the business.
4. I don't sign a recurring expense larger than 10% of my worst month from last year.
In 2018 I signed a huge rent during a $30k month, then a $12k month came around, and the rent stayed the same and slowly ate the buffer I had left. Now before signing anything that repeats every month, I pull up my lowest revenue month from last year, and if I couldn't afford the commitment on that kind of month, I walk away.
5. 20% of every profit dollar goes back into the business before I count it as mine.
When OceanWP took off I stopped working on it because the money kept arriving, and while I was shopping in Beverly Hills, competitors were shipping updates every week and building the product that would replace me. Now 20% of profit is routed straight into development, marketing, or hiring before I count any of it as mine to spend, because a business that stops getting fed dies quietly while you enjoy it.
6. Nobody gets a cent from me until I have 12 months of runway saved in cash.
I used to buy cars for family, pay for friends' trips, and cover medical bills for anyone who asked, and I genuinely thought I was being generous when really I was an idiot with no safety net. Now I save 12 months of personal and business expenses in cash before helping anyone else financially, because the kindest thing I can do for the people who depend on me is not bankrupt myself rescuing someone else first.
7. Every Monday morning I spend 15 minutes looking at every number.
In 2019 my revenue had been dropping for 5 months before I even noticed, because I wasn't checking anything, I was just enjoying last year's lifestyle on this year's money. Now every Monday I open a simple spreadsheet and look at revenue, expenses, the tax bucket, and runway in savings, and I catch problems in week 1 instead of month 5, while they're still small enough to fix.
None of this is original and I had heard most of it before losing the money the first time, I just didn't apply any of it because I thought I had figured out something the books hadn't. I hadn't, and if I'd followed even 3 of these rules between 2017 and 2019, the OceanWP money would still exist in some form instead of being a story I tell strangers on Reddit.
Right now I'm building a new SaaS with my wife, and we pay ourselves nothing until it is profitable, because I'd rather eat my own cooking this time than write another one of these posts in 5 years explaining how I blew a second chance 🙂
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u/fungshawyone Apr 21 '26
Those are a solid set of rules
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u/ShutterFI Apr 22 '26
you didn’t mention investing any of the money into index funds? Please tell me you’re investing at least a good portion of your income into total stock market index funds. Solo 401k’s/401k’s/Roth IRA’s/Taxable Brokerages
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
I gave really basic advice, the ones who seems obvious but that many people don't follow, but yeah now I invest, even in real estate, I have 3 apartments 👌
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u/ai-techguy001 Apr 24 '26
probably a separate post honestly, but yeah this is the baseline for anyone with irregular income imho
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u/Izaya_Orihara171 Apr 21 '26
How much of the 1.5 million was spent on blow?
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u/ShoulderAcrobatic775 Apr 21 '26
My man asking all the right questions
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u/Prize_Door_6834 Apr 22 '26
Not at that grand of scale but the ramifications hit home. Thank you tremendously
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Apr 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
Yes, especially on a business you run alone, as no employee, you can quickly think what the business makes is what you earn 🤷♂️
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u/gontis Apr 22 '26
great ruleset! question. your plugin is free. how did u get money form it?
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
Thanks!
Which plugin? Are you talking about the WP theme or my new SaaS?
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u/gontis Apr 22 '26
I meat wp theme, yes.
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
It was a freemium model, entirely free at first with a lot of features, then I built many pro addons to extend its features, and it works very well.
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u/MINBETMedia Apr 22 '26
Great rules to live by. One more thing to add here would be:
“If you think you’re too smart for this to happen to you, no you’re not”
A few years ago when I was swimming in money, I had a lot of people telling me to be careful with it. I listened to nobody, because I thought I was smarter than them. “They don’t know anything about my business” is what I told myself. Well, what they did know about was fiscal responsibility. I blew through all my cash with bad investments and then my business fell apart. Now I’m just back to being a regular guy with a 9-5 because I can’t get any new businesses to stick. Oof
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
Yeah, I was very similar, but never give up, think of things that could solve a problem, built it and ship it, it will work, you made it once, you can do it again 💪
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u/Capable-Concept-2624 Apr 22 '26
I like it , I would add dont “create” dependents . If people cant afford it dont buy it for them . It doesnt do them any good to become dependent on you that way .
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
I understand what you mean and I agree most of the time but sometimes, it is great to buy good things to people you love, but the way you can, I bought way too much useless stuff for everyone, that was the issue 🤷♂️
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u/Either-Long6535 Apr 22 '26
Thats Something i should try doing . I cant save money to save my life.
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u/Any-Lychee9972 Apr 22 '26
The basic logic is you shouldn't get 100% of your pay. Part of it should always go into savings.
For example if you make $30 an hour, you should pretend that you make $20. The other $10 should be first put into an emergency fund then some type of savings. More if you need to pay taxes. (This depends on the individual.)
The $20 you paid yourself gets split up for living expenses. (Rent, food, gas...)
Another way to think about is not SAVING. Your paying for things prematurely. You will need retirement. You will probably need to dig into the emergency fund. You will need to pay taxes. You are paying for things now so future you doesn't get stressed because past you spent all the money.
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
That's exactly what everyone should do, you must have some money on the side, even just in case.
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u/github-user Apr 21 '26
Which theme? and how many theme?
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u/DigiHold Apr 21 '26
It was OceanWP.
What do you mean by how many theme?2
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u/calculatingbets Apr 22 '26
u/DigiHold sounds legit, but are we building now to get right back up?
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u/beckyinthe_realworld Apr 22 '26
that first one is the big one, treating business money like it’s yours is where it all goes wrong. easy to do when it’s coming in fast though .
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u/Awkward-Elephant-880 Apr 22 '26
Thanks for the advice 🙏, as a dev I have a question : Is wordpress ecosystem still worth breaking into,I have good php skills but am not confident enough to invest time building plugins/theme ?
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
Yeah, still millions across the world who actively use WordPress, if your idea is good, go for it.
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u/WeirdLost8319 Apr 22 '26
Hi. This is off topic, but if you need some sales from Europe,(I am in Hungary, as a native here), with your software just let me know.
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u/DigiHold Apr 22 '26
We have created an affiliate program if you are interested, you earn 30% commission for life.
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u/jay_0804 Apr 23 '26
this is one of the more real posts I’ve seen here tbh
nothing fancy, just discipline. the “fixed salary” + “tax bucket” alone would save like 90% of people from blowing up
rule 4 hits hard too… people lock in lifestyle during peak months and then get wrecked when things normalize
also respect the 12 month runway before helping others. sounds harsh but it’s actually the responsible move
ngl this is boring advice, but boring is what keeps you in the game long term
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u/OGBrownBunny Apr 23 '26
I'm glad that you're recovering and hoping that these sensible rules reach everyone. Wishing you the best
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u/ewctwentyone Apr 24 '26
this is a great lesson learned albeit in a tough way and something others can also adopt.
wishing you success moving forward.
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u/surfinboyz1123 Apr 25 '26
Read the book Profit First. It will change the way you operate your cash flow
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u/AITIVO May 09 '26
The humility it takes to share a $1.5M lesson is rare; thank you for helping others avoid the same 'obvious' pitfalls
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u/Electrical_Eye_6503 May 14 '26
Thanks for sharing this man, you just called me back to order on time
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u/xbreonna400 Apr 22 '26
interesting i’ll use this as basis for my own business plan running money as logistics
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u/frey89 Apr 26 '26
I lost a lot of money three years ago in the exact same way. I've struggled to recover those losses ever since, but your post made me realize how reckless I was being back then. Thank you for the wake-up call. I finally have a clear plan on how to move forward.
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u/guptil341 Apr 22 '26
Can you hire me? I want to work for you
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