A #LeadSafeMama Financial Update: July 14, 2019 – Testing, Projects, Legal Battles

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Hello all!

Seeing as how my readers have been critical players in supporting my work during a difficult 3+ years, it’s time for an update on the progress of various things – including a variety of exciting news to share!

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#1, my legal battle:

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to help raise the funds to cover the expenses retainer for my new attorney in the final phase of my legal battle — we did it!

With your help (along with a matching pledge of support from a generous anonymous friend), I was able to raise the full amount required to get the new attorney team on board! [This retainer was just to cover expenses; they will be taking on the bulk of the case (the hourly work) on contingency! ]

My new team leader (Michelle) is a skilled, experienced civil rights attorney, who came highly recommended from some of the other top attorneys I have connected with in Portland. I will likely not be posting about this new phase much (until the end!) – but as it unfolds (and as my attorney gives me permission to share milestones) I will post what updates I can. Most important to note: We are moving the case to Federal court – suing the State of Oregon in Federal Court for the multiple civil rights violations against me over the past three years since these attacks started.

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Even though we are at this phase in the battle (the final phase – which is a huge relief!) I still have SEVERAL outstanding legal bills [from the legal team that saw me through the initial defensive work —responding to the sustained (seemingly coordinated) attacks on my advocacy].

Below is a list with the bulk of those outstanding bills:

• $13,127.38+ still payable to my criminal defense lawyers (who defended me after my illegal arrest).
• $11,420.90+ still payable to the legal team who supported me through the full investigative audit with the IRS.
• $12,000+ due to the attorney who supported the most recent phase of the DOJ-initiated inquiry.
• $2,750.00+ due to the forensic bookkeeper who supported the IRS audit and subsequent array of DOJ-initiated inquires.
• $4,277.50 due to the forensic bookkeeper who supported demonstrating my innocence in the additional inquiries on the case.

There’s more – but just to address those large bills (all work that was required to prove my innocence in response to these illegal attacks on me, my life, my advocacy work) totals $43,575.78. I would love to be in a position to pay a large portion of these in the coming months.

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#2, my XRF rental bill:

With your help, I recently raised enough to pay down my outstanding XRF rental bill a bit. The bill is now down to $4,207.43 – and it is time for another payment, so I am working to raise at least $300 more towards that (in the next few days). If you appreciate my consumer goods testing results that I report here on this site, please consider making a contribution. Thank you! [Here’s a link with ways to chip in!]

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#3, milestones and measures of success:

In spite of the personal emotional and financial toll of the past three years, year to date in 2019 (from January 1, 2019 to the moment of publishing this blog post) my website has had:

• More than 2,171,749 unique page views by
• 1,244,980 unique people in
• 216 “countries” (as defined by Google Analytics).

The average views for this website so far this year (calendar year 2019) has been:

• 334,115 views a month
• 11,186 views per day

These numbers are all phenomenal, and this is already the #BestYearEver for Lead Safe Mama, LLC — but if I am able to keep up the momentum of the past 7 months, this work is poised to have an unprecedented impact in 2019.

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#4, income this year (2019):

I am excited to share that preliminary numbers from my bookkeeper also reflect the above success – showing that Lead Safe Mama, LLC brought in more in the first half of 2019 than in all of 2018!

While the actual numbers still represent relatively “small potatoes” compared to most businesses, in the context of the battle of the past three years these numbers are incredibly exciting (and mostly thanks to the increased advertising income made possible by the greatly increased traffic on my site over the past 8 months).

In 2018, Lead Safe Mama’s total (gross) business income was about $59,000 [with total – accrued – expenses, including the legal battle costs, for 2018 equalling more than $85,000], but in 2019 to date, Lead Safe Mama, LLC has already earned roughly $61,000 (also, unfortunately, against a near-equal amount of expenses – primarily due to the continued legal battles).

However, if things continue on trajectory, this means Lead Safe Mama, LLC could possibly earn as much as $120,000 (gross) this calendar year (2019) [and looking to future months – this will be without the previous 3 years’ Sisyphean struggle to cover those ongoing crushing legal defense costs!]

This is so very exciting for me — as it indicates a new potential future with a self-sustaining business (doing what I love – writing, researching and helping families – & hopefully giving paid work to other mothers returning to work after having kids, by hiring them as subcontractors!) that will finally (again!) cover my costs (once the legal battle is over and done for good!)

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#5, the future:

I am incredibly excited about what the future holds right now for this work!

I have a few projects in the works that I now will get to pick back up again (because I have an excellent and highly skilled attorney handling my bigger case and don’t have to spend all my time fighting legal battles anymore!)

My goal is to get several of these projects (many of which have been in the works, but forced into “on hold” status for years now by of the legal battles) 100% complete by the end of the year, and I am expanding my team AND looking for investor support to help make that happen — and (for any potential investors) am offering a generous return [out of secured income I will be receiving in about 6-months time].

If you think you might know someone interested in helping to support my business (as an angel investor) during what has been a period of phenomenal growth for the reach and impact of Lead Safe Mama, LLC, please follow up with me in an e-mail and I will send you more details: TamaraRubin@mac.com

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#6, how you can help:

While contributions in support of my legal defense fund are always welcome, I’m not looking for “handouts”; I am looking for paid work opportunities and investors in my business.

While we are still engaged in this legal battle (for the next couple of years), this continues to be a critical time for my advocacy work.

I would venture to say that staying on course over the next six months is ironically going to be the most difficult and most critical challenge yet. One reason for this is that many of my readers assume the legal war is “over” – when in fact it is (by virtue of the mountain of outstanding bills is most definitely not !)…

Because folks think the rough patch is “over”, contributed support has trickled down to very very little [and consulting work tends to predictably slump off in the summer, as well!] — so I have no short-term projected income at the moment (just the advertising income for my blog – which works out to between $2,000 and $3,500 per month, most months…not enough to pay the mortgage, feed the family and cover utilities (especially after essential business expenses are paid)).

Here are a few ways you can help sustain this work during what is a critical time:

• FREE: Share my posts with your friends and communities on social media! Post-shares = ad income (working out to between one and two cents per page view) and if I can sustain 200,000+ views a month through the end of the year I will actually be able to cover my base operating costs out of advertising income alone!
• ALSO FREE (no cost to you): Start ALL of your Amazon shopping by clicking on one of my affiliate links (I post a new Amazon affiliate link every day on the Lead Safe Mama Facebook page!) At no extra cost to you I earn about 6% of what you spend on Amazon if you start your shopping with one of my links (and you don’t have to buy the thing I recommend for me to earn that referral fee!) Here’s an Affiliate link to get you started: https://amzn.to/2l7i9jI
• MAKE A REQUEST: Ask your local health department – or the company you work for – to hire me for a speaking engagement and Lead-poisoning Prevention Month (October) special event! Cost varies a bit depending on your location and the scope of the event, however my base-rate for these events is $5,500 and they can include lots of *fun* (informative, beneficial) extras for your community (free Blood Lead Level testing; free consumer goods testing, and more.) More on that here: LINK.
• BOOK ME! Prepay for a home consultation with me, and you will be first on my schedule when I next come to your area. My rate is now $250 an hour, with a minimum home visit of 2 hours if I am already in your area (so $500.) Here’s a link with more information about that: LINK.
• SUBSCRIBE with a monthly gift in support of the testing I report on the blog (just $25 a month!): LINK.
• CONTRIBUTE something towards my legal defense fund, through PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe – or whatever means work for you! 

Thank you for considering helping in any of these ways.

Here’s to a much brighter future and significantly expanded reach of the message of Lead-poisoning prevention.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama