2025 FINANCIAL STATEMENT
Phew, after months (and months) of procrastinating and many long nights, we (Kazu and LiZhen) can finally offer our financial transparency statement for the first three quarters of 2025!!!
We’ve been trying to figure out how best to offer this on a regular basis ever since we both work for ourselves. Because we have not been doing any sort of bookkeeping for our personal finances, we had to sign up for a service and go back through every transaction for 9 months!!!
And it was not just the practical work of bookkeeping. This is a pretty vulnerable thing to do – to share all of our finances transparently like this. And now that neither of us work for an organization, we not only need to share our individual finances, but our joint finances, since we share all of our money. So this process has also included deep conversations with each other, about what it means for us to be so transparent with our money, how we share it, what comes up for us as we consider taking this plunge, etc.
We’re so grateful to each other for our shared commitment to the Gift Economy, and for our vulnerability in sharing this information. We feel so lucky that we have a partnership where our values feel aligned.
But now that we have this in order, we hope to be able to provide this on a regular basis. Our hope is to provide a simple statement in Kazu’s monthly e-newsletter (sign up here) as well as a more detailed statement like this one every quarter on both of our newsletters and websites (Kazu’s and LiZhen’s).
A few things to know up-front:
Are you curious why we are even doing this? It is part of our commitment to the Gift Economy, and we believe that transparency is a key aspect of it. Read Kazu’s statement about it here to find out more.
We (Kazu and LiZhen) share all of our finances. We both practice in the Gift Economy. These numbers reflect the expenses and income for both of us, supporting a family of four (the two of us, our little one, and Kazu’s mother) – in addition to regularly supporting other members of our immediate families who are in need.
We had to try to go back and figure out every single transaction in the last 9-months, between our checking account, savings account, multiple credit cards, Venmo, Paypal, etc… And we are not accountants, so we are not certain this is 100% accurate. It is as close as we can get for now, and the numbers will be much more accurate moving forward – we promise!
These are just the financial numbers. This does not take into account the countless resources and gifts we have been in relationship with that did not cost money and cannot be measured. From the gifts of the earth to support from friends and community, from meals that we shared to the times that people watched our child, we are so grateful for these priceless gifts that help us sustain.
And now, the main headlines:
From January 1st to September 30th of this year, our family made $108,973.84, and had expenses of $112,127.40. This means that we ate into our savings by $2,153.56.
We are SO GRATEFUL to each of you who supported us to make our lives sustainable, and to every corner of the earth and the universe for giving us abundance.
To see a spreadsheet with a detailed breakdown, click here.
But numbers can only tell so much of the story, so here are some of the narratives, to give you a sense of the story behind the numbers.
Our Home - $32,758.16
We live in a beautiful, two-bedroom home in Oakland, CA. The home is part of the Canticle Farm community, a community of 11 homes, a tiny home and a yurt, consisting of 40-ish people diverse across every identity marker you can imagine. Living in this community is one of the greatest gifts in our lives.
The only way that our home is affordable to us is because Canticle Farm owns 50% of it. In addition, when we purchased this home together, a donor who read Kazu’s first book and was a supporter of Canticle gifted us with $100,000 to pay off our portion of the mortgage. And finally, because Canticle was in relationship with the previous owners of this house, it never went on the market, saving us money.
These are all gifts that make it possible for us to afford to live in the Bay Area. And these are just some of the ways that the total sum of a gift could never show up on a simple spreadsheet.
In addition to our mortgage payments and property tax, after three years of living without heat, we finally had a heat pump installed in our home this year!!!
However, we recently found out that there was mold in our house, and are preparing for a remediation process, which we anticipate could cost tends of thousands of dollars…
Business Expenses - $18,292.12
Wow that’s a lot of money! Here are some of the exciting projects we were able to do with it.
Most of this – about $12,000 – is for travel. Because we have a 17-month-old child, most of our business trips have been with the entire family, so that no parent has to be completely alone with the baby for too long. This has increased our expenses, but we feel like it is a worthwhile investment so that our family can stay together as much as possible in the early years of our child’s life.
As many of you know, Kazu’s second book, Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse came out at the end of March. We were on the road for most of April doing book events on the East Coast. Because Kazu works with a small, nonprofit Buddhist press, they do not have a budget to support things like book tours, so all of the expenses for that trip – roughly $3,300) came out of our pocket.
In addition, our family went to Slovenia! LiZhen is now the co-director and on the teaching team for the School of Unusual Life Learning (SoULL). SoULL teaches a holistic philosophy on life, which deeply incorporates death not as the end of life, but as a critical part of it. Through understanding the important role death plays for all of us, we can live a more complete life.
SoULL just taught its first in-person workshop in Slovenia in July. This trip allowed LiZhen’s wisdom to be shared with participants from throughout Europe, and also allowed our child to meet Kazu’s aunt – who lives in nearby Austria – for the first time! This trip cost us roughly $4,000.
We spent close to two-weeks in British Columbia earlier this year, first traveling to the University of Victoria to meet with author of Hospicing Modernity Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti and members of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective. Kazu was honored to give a lecture there as part of their Climate, Complexity & Decolonization speaker series.
We then traveled to Bowen Island, where Kazu worked with the Necessary Trouble Collective, Building Belonging and friends from YES Jams to facilitate a gathering called Movements of Belonging – a five-day gathering of frontlines activists from the Vancouver area to build a culture of deep belonging as the foundation for activism.
In addition, we have been able to work with foundations, educators, community groups, artists, therapists and healers, and groups of incarcerated people all over the country. Other expenses included having to buy a new laptop, purchasing copies of Kazu’s own books to have at various events and to gift to people, supplies, shipping, copies, etc.
Travel - $5,002.01
This includes a family trip to Taiwan and Japan we took this past February, as well as expenses for another trip to Asia we plan to take next February. The majority of these expenses are for the flights for those two trips. Yexin, who was less than a year-old at the time, got to meet her great-grandparents and many other relatives for the first time!
Family Support - $4,292.58
We are so grateful that we have the privilege to be able to support members of our family. This includes regular support for the elders in our family, as well as supporting other family members when they are in need. Neither of us come from wealth, so it is our joy and honor to be able to support them.
Cash - $2,384.75
Now that we have this financial system figured out, we hope to be better at tracking our cash spending. It was impossible to go back and figure out the accounting for all of this. However, a lot of this was spent in Asia when we were there in February. Japan and Taiwan, where we were, is still largely a cash-based economy, so much of this went to buying food and other expenses during that trip.
Other Notes
We are so excited to begin to take our baby out more, to play at different events, take them to zoos and museums, and enroll them in some classes!
We want to recommit to a regular percentage of our income to reparations/redistribution. In particular, we want to support local Indigenous communities, Black-led projects, and protecting migrant communities. Now that we are doing regular accounting again, we will begin offering more back.
INCOME - $108,973.84
We are constantly blown away by the generosity we receive. This year, we made more money from contracts than we have ever imagined – despite the fact that we continue to work without a set “fee.” Contracts include speaking fees and workshops hosted by organizations.
Kazu received as much as $10,000 for a speaking gig this year! This allows him to continue to offer his work as a gift, including the times that he have done workshops for communities who cannot afford to pay him anything – youth groups, groups working with marginalized communities, and incarcerated people.
He is slowly increasing the donations he receive through his website, as well as paid subscribers to his Substack. We are hoping this continues to be a trend, as it will allow him to focus more on his writing.
LiZhen continues to earn income from her counseling and astrology practice as well – something they offer in the Gift Economy.
And finally, we are happy, honored and humbled to have earned close to $5,000 from the sales of Kazu’s books. About 50% of that comes from royalites, and 50% from direct sales of books purchased through him at various events.
Moving forward
Now that we have finally gotten our finances in order, the next order of business has been creating updated budgets so we can rein in some of this spending. Unfortunately, we have a big expenditure coming up as we plan to do serious mold remediation in our home. However, we have planned to cut back significantly in personal spending, and eating out in particular, though we are making small cuts in health and travel spending as well. We are making a plan to increase our giving toward donations and reparations by the end of the year as well.
Closing thoughts
We’re not sure who is still reading this, lol. If you are, we are so curious to hear from you about why you are reading, what is coming up for you, and what you may be getting out of this.
Even if no one is reading this, we are committed to continuing to put this out as close to quarterly as we can. Not only does it help us manage our own finances, it gives us a chance to look back at all of the work we have been able to do and all of the gifts – financial and otherwise – that have come our way.
The Gift Economy has taught us so much. It has deepened our relationship with the natural world, taught us the value of community, and has kept us honest about what our needs are. It has made us appreciate all of the gifts that are present in our lives.
And for that, we are so eternally grateful.
If you would like to contribute to our family and our work’s sustainability, we would welcome gifts of any size here or here. Thank you all so much for all that you do and give.