“Those aren’t expenses. Those are investments.”

👋 Welcome back to Content to Commas. This is your weekly playbook for making your content do its job for your business and your bank account.

👆 That first line came up in a conversation this week and it stopped me in my tracks.

Because most of us are trying to do the “responsible” thing and keep costs down.

But not everything you pay for is a mistake and not every dollar you avoid is a win.

This issue is about learning how to spend with intent, so your decisions actually support the thing you’re building instead of working against it.

📌 In this issue:

Let’s go build,

Brandon Smithwrick 🧠

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My wife is starting a new business.

We’re both serial entrepreneurs, so ideas tend to get talked out loud. As she walked me through this new venture, her focus went straight to keeping costs down. Too many expenses. Too much overhead. Trying to stay lean.

I stopped her mid-sentence and said…

“That’s not an expense. Those are investments.”

It stuck with me.

I feel like too many people treat every dollar the same, even though not every dollar does the same work.

An expense makes you feel busy. An investment changes your trajectory.

Same credit card. Very different outcome.

I see this everywhere. Content. Tools. Events. Even lifestyle choices. People either freeze and spend nothing, or overcorrect and buy everything.

Neither works.

The goal isn’t to spend less or spend more. It’s to spend with intent.

That’s the lens I run almost every decision through. 👇

I don’t look at receipts. I look at returns.

Not just money.

Time. Clarity. Positioning.

Here are the three filters I use to decide whether something is an expense or an investment:

I literally ask myself this.

Tools are just tools. They don’t make you good. They expose what’s already there.

A camera didn’t make anyone a great photographer. A blank doc didn’t make anyone a great writer.

So the real question isn’t “do I need this?” … It’s “will this create more?”

Seeds grow into something bigger. Weeds steal resources.

Conferences are the easiest example here.

Flight. Hotel. Ticket. Time away. Mental energy. Even when parts are comped, the question is the same:

My first trip to Cannes Lions could have been 100% an expense.

Cannes didn’t pay me. What I did with Cannes did.

I used it to position myself in rooms I wouldn’t normally be in. That trip led to a recurring consulting relationship in addition to the 2 brand deals I pitched prior and justified going back the next year.

If you say yes to something like this, decide in advance what makes it count.

This one requires honesty.

Most bad spending is about avoidance.

Avoiding discomfort. Avoiding tradeoffs. Avoiding saying no.

Here’s the rule I live by…

If you have to talk yourself into it, it’s probably an expense.

As you grow, you’ll spend more. That’s normal. I’m running payroll at a new level and actively building a team.

The difference now is clarity.

I ask what I’m optimizing for: time, rest, growth, or profit.

Cleaners and meal service are investments for me. They buy time and mental space. A random new thing for the apartment usually isn’t.

Same money. Different intent.

Let me be clear about something…

Not every investment pays off. That’s why I avoid long vague bets.

If an investment can’t show ROI in 60–90 days, it’s a long bet. Long bets are a privilege, not a strategy.

It looks like momentum, less friction, better inbound conversations, clearer positioning, or more consistent output. If nothing changes after 90 days, that’s information.

I had a professor who once told me, “If you’re not updating your resume every month or two, you’re not doing enough.” I don’t think she meant busier. I think she meant intentional.

Same rule applies here.

If you’re not revisiting your business “investments”, you’re coasting on old decisions.

You don’t need to spend more. You need to decide better.

2026 won’t reward the busiest people. It’ll reward the clearest ones.

Lock-in season isn’t about intensity. It’s about intent.

Let’s lock it chat!

Each week, I share simple tips on branding, making money, growth strategies, and useful tools that you might have missed. You can catch up in just a few minutes.

The stack I keep coming back to in my own business.

These posts did numbers for a reason. Worth a reread.