Brennan Schlagbaum, CPA aka The Budgetdog
1. Tell us a little about yourself
My name is Brennan, and I am a 30-year-old CPA living in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. I started @budgetdog with the hope of helping people understand and navigate their own financial situations and to educate as many people as I could so they never found themselves making so many “normal” mistakes.
2. What made you go into accounting?
Quite honestly, I took an accounting class in high school and I wasn’t really sure what I was gonna do. I knew I wanted to do business. I knew that was the backbone of business and I knew that using my accounting degree (and I also got a finance degree, so I was a double major) I would be able to leverage both of those in a professional field. When I worked at Deloitte, I was also looking into an advisor route; however, eventually I decided not to. I decided to start my own company as well. That’s kinda the reasoning behind why I went into accounting.
3. What are some of your greatest challenges and accomplishments?
I will give you a professional and a personal. So my personal, when I was at the age of 29, we had our first daughter. I as, I think I was 29 or 30. She was born totally normal and I quit my nine to five at that point at the time. Four months in, I started running my own business and I was staying home with her full time. Everything was fine. And then boom, she had her first seizure. I have a whole blog post on my website as well about this. You should just got just go to budgetdog.com and then go to the blog and you’ll see An Unimaginable Reality – Logan and Dravet’s Syndrome.
We had to actually move across the country, after I quit my nine to five. To make sure she had the best healthcare in the nation, so that’s my biggest personal challenge. And obviously that’s ongoing, so it’s not like it’s done. We are still dealing with that on a daly basis. We’ve had a huge upgrade in her health and all that kind of stuff. It’s still a daily challenge, it’s really difficult. My wife was able to stay home with her full time, and she was able to quit her nine to five, which is so awesome .
Biggest professional challenge was starting my own business, and I think that’s also still present today. It's awesome being able to leave my nine to five, and start my own business. But there’s a lot that goes into it and there’s constant roadblocks and hurdles that you have to hop over and adapt and all those kinds of things with the new market. Building your own business is no easy feat. I started with just myself and I now have 14 people on my team. There’s 14 people and human beings that have different needs and concerns and viewpoints. That’s a hard thing to manage. That’s where I am right now, still growing that company and I would say that’s my biggest challenge today. I have been able to do some crazy things, growing my business to a seven figure multi seven figure business. It’s been a tremendous growth, but with that comes a lot of challenges.
What hobbies or current side projects do you have going on?
I don’t do a whole lot of side stuff. Honestly, my whole focus is my family or my business. So if I am not working on the business during the day, I am with them. I don’t do a lot of hobbies. I am very focused on what I do. So I like to work out, I work out all the time. That’s the only other hobby per se. I don’t know if it’s a hobby. It’s a lifestyle, I guess you could say, but that’s every single day.
What is the best way for people to connect with you?
The best way is all my socials.