Hey Tamara, how are things working out for you? Are you rolling in dough yet (from your website & advocacy work)?

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My Financial Goal for 2019

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Question: 

Hey Tamara, how are things working out for you?
Are you rolling in dough yet (from your website & advocacy work)?

Answers:

… On a really good day, I earn about 1.9 cents per page view on my website.

January 1, 2019

Hello all!

Since this question comes up every now and then, I thought January 1st (after the best month ever in the history of my site, with 203,204 views in one month!) would be a great time to address this a little more thoroughly. A blogger friend once told me that bloggers are also really interested in learning how other bloggers are doing, which is another reason I like to report my progress and ideation around my stats and income here on the website. Click here to see the “site stats” category of posts on LeadSafeMama.com if you are interested in checking out my progress and history!

A little bit about me:
I am a mama of four boys. My oldest is grown and away at college. My three younger boys have disabilities (primarily as a result of their early childhood Lead exposure). My husband also has some fairly significant disabilities and is not currently a financial contributor to the home, although he is amazing in helping with the kids, taking care of the home, and helping me with my advocacy work. He is also (as he has been for years) an inventor (focused on saving the planet in other ways!) working on his bicycle and bicycle cargo trailer projects. We hope those will become income-producing ventures soon.

How much did your website advertising earn you in December?
All my advertising income sources combined earned me $3,900.92 in December, which I will get paid split across the end of February and the beginning of March. This is the most I have ever earned in one month from advertising income. If I was able to earn that much gross for my business each month (on a regular basis), my family would still be far below the poverty level.

How much income do I need for my family to “survive?”
In a hypothetical situation where all my legal debt has “disappeared,” where this chaotic chapter of my life (the past three years) was over, and I was starting over again at square one… to pay for our costs as a family of five (living in Portland, Oregon in 2019) I truly need to earn a minimum of $10,000 a month. If I earned this much it would really just cover the basics like:

• house payment (mortgage)
• insurance  (home, auto)
• taxes
• food (we eat all organic and my kiddos have special diets, so that’s a big expense)
• utilities (gas, electric, garbage, water/sewer, internet, phones)
• periodic home maintenance/upkeep/repairs
• transportation (we are car-free so this means buses, rental cars, Ubers, etc)
• clothes & incidentals (including shoes!)
• medical insurance (if we are making enough to cover the above we will be disqualified for public health insurance)
• childcare (care for my boys is usually at least $15 per hour per boy for my two youngest boys when I am doing work-related things or traveling, if I have skilled care for them, so working costs me $30 per hour in childcare if my boys are being taken care of properly). Also once we are making enough to cover the above we will be disqualified for the respite care we currently get for Avi (which is $15 an hour for 80 to 120 hours a month, depending on the time of year).
• school. Right now just one of my boys attends a school that costs us tuition (about $2,000 a quarter/ $8,000 a year). Given how bad schools are here in Portland, especially in the area of supporting special needs kids, it truly would be more appropriate to send each of my three youngest to a special school. Appropriate schools for my two younger children cost between $25,000 and $30,000 a year (so that would not be covered by the $10,000 a month budget)!

Earning $10,000 a month also would NOT cover my business-related expenses/ expenses related to my advocacy like:

• Legal
• Accounting
• XRF rental
• Administrative assistance
• Social media assistance
• Website-related (hosting and upkeep)
• Travel costs (airfare, ground transportation/rental cars, lodging)
• Advertising/Event Promotion
• Business Insurance
• Registration and other fees
• & more.

If all of these costs were also covered I could EASILY continue doing what I do (after my legal battle is over).

If (for starters) just the $10,000 a month were covered I would at least have our basic needs met and would be able to focus on growing my business to cover the other costs as well. This is my goal for 2019.

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How much do you want to earn? And how can we help?

Here’s where you come in… (how you can help make my work sustainable for my family without spending a penny!)…

In December 2018, my website had 203,204 (!) unique views. Those views helped me earn exactly $3,900.92 via advertising channels on the site (money which I will get paid in late February/early March 2019). While the amount I earn through advertising is not exactly consistently correlated with site views (in November and December the rate is much higher than in other months), we can come up with the following possible equation/scenario using December’s numbers:

• 203,204 views in a month = 6,554 views a day (average) = $3,900.92
• 6,554 views a day = $125.84 a day
• To earn at least $10,000 a month I would need to earn $322.58 a day
• To earn $322.58 a day (based on Dec 2018 numbers) I would need to have 16,800 views a day
• 16,800 views a day = 520,819 views a month

Yesterday (12/31), I had 32,530 views on LeadSafeMama.com.
On 12/30 the site saw 42,721 views.
On 12/29 the site saw 15,800 views.
Today (1/1/19),  as of 2:35 p.m., I have had 12,321 views on this website…

So while the past few days have been absolutely unprecedented (because things went viral over the essential oil stuff), it’s not impossible or unreasonable (or magical thinking, even) to envision a scenario where with the help of my readers sharing my posts on a regular basis I actually earn enough to cover my bills so I can keep doing what I do (once the legal battle is over!). If you don’t know about the legal battle, click HERE.

I know it’s odd to share this stuff publicly, but each day I do this math (based on the views for the day) to see if I can predict what I will earn in the coming month. I thought I would share a little of this thought process with my readers so you can see how sharing my work directly impacts my life and my ability to continue doing what I do.

Thank you for bothering to read this post!

Thank you for following and supporting my work.

Thank you for sharing my posts about Lead, Lead poisoning, Lead in consumer goods, and more.

Most importantly, thank you for standing with me in protecting children everywhere.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama