September 2018 Lead Safe Mama Financial Update

Last month (August 2018) I decided to start sharing a monthly summary report of my income each from my social media activities and independent consumer goods testing work, so my readers can follow how I am doing in this area (since you are the source behind this income, either directly or indirectly.)

Please note: While I am excited about the direction things are headed, I still have more than $100,000 in legal debt from the legal battles in support of my advocacy over the past two years. This debt is either in the form of money owed directly to lawyers or money owed to friends who have helped me pay legal retainers and ongoing costs in this fight.

While there have been consistent victories on each of the several fronts of this multi-pronged attack, a sizable piece of the legal battle is still ahead of me … so I feel it is important to reiterate that I still have a great need in that area, and the amount of money LeadSafeMama.com is currently bringing in through lead poisoning prevention advocacy work is not yet enough to even begin to put a dent in any of my current legal debt (with more still to come before we’re through). [I’m still looking for significant help in that area if you have any ideas.]

This legal battle has also left our home in foreclosure. With all time and resources directed to fighting to prove my innocence compounded by the scarcity of paid work (outside of my writing and consumer goods testing work), we requested and were granted a forbearance period through November 4th, and we have been told the mortgage company will kick us back into active foreclosure after the 4th (less than a month away), so could use help with that as well.

I will be posting a full update about our legal situation very shortly.

In the meantime, I am working to grow my business and my #LeadSafeMama brand, with a goal of continuing to make an impact on social media that will help as many families as possible while also keeping the information I share open for anyone to access, as a free resource [not behind a paywall like WP, NYT and many other purveyors of news and information resources have concluded they needed to do].

In doing this I hope to have a solid sustainable income and reliable business model in place once the legal battles are finally over!

Funds being raised right now are truly primarily in support the direct independent consumer goods testing costs, as well as costs related peripherally to doing that work: XRF rental costs; related travel (economy airfares; cheap car rentals; gas; insurance; low-budget lodging; shipping costs; website hosting; website development work; posts promotion; graphic design work; related Internet & phone service; administrative assistance; social media outreach assistance; etc.)

For these costs to be 100% covered (including possibly making a reasonable monthly payment towards the legal debt incurred in defending my advocacy work), I would really need to bring in upwards of $10,000 a month (i.e. after PayPal fees, GoFundMe fees, etc.)

With a base of $10,000 a month in income, my work would be sustainable, I could continue helping families, but would start being able to address the needs of my own family too (and possibly even begin to save up to buy my own XRF instrument eventually!)

A few points to note regarding the information shared on the graphic below:

Even after September’s income (which covered a small payment to my outstanding XRF rental bill from earlier this year), the outstanding balance due on my XRF rental bill is now $4,757.43. It is my goal to put as much as I can each month towards this bill, as the ability to rent an XRF for consumer goods testing in the future is crucial to my work!
Affiliate Income, GoFundMe contributions and Monthly Subscription Donations are all down a bit from last month (August 2018). The simplest (and free) ways you can help with this (especially with the Amazon Affiliate income) are:

Clicking on one of my affiliate links any time before you shop on Amazon. Even if you don’t intend to buy what I recommend, Amazon tracks the Affiliate Link visit (via your browsers’ cookies) and I still get a percentage of what you spend anyway – at no extra cost to you!
Sharing as many of my posts as possible on social media is helpful to this end too. It takes you just a second and if it is a post where I recommend a product on Amazon and people click through, that can give a big boost to my Affiliate Income for the month. [Here’s a random Amazon affiliate link you can use today!]

FYI: Amazon Affiliate Income and Blog Advertising Income each have a two-month delay in being paid to me. While technically I earned this income in September, I will not be paid the income until December. This month (October, 2018) I am seeing my first actual advertising income payment (from July) of $60.41 (Woohoo! you have to start somewhere, right?!)
The reason my direct XRF testing help category this month is so much higher than in August is that in September I had my final “Flash Sale“ (final for the year, and also final ever, most likely) for people to send in $ in advance to help cover XRF testing costs for items they plan to send in over the course of the coming year.
Also to reiterate the final (tiny) footnotes on the graphic below, the total does not include any speaking fees earned, but also does not take into account the PayPal and GoFundMe fees deducted from each contribution.
GOAL: My long-term plan is to coordinate an average of TWO days of speaking engagements each month of the year, which would then result in enough $ after expenses cover my personal* expenses for the month in addition to the advocacy costs which will continue to be covered by my blog and social media outreach work (*personal costs like…mortgage, home insurance, taxes, groceries, health insurance, clothes, utilities, transportation…all that fun stuff – & maybe eventually someday a vacation!)