For those new to this website:
Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic). Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023 (March 2023 print edition).
I am writing this to my regular readers (& friends!) to share with them the difference they can make by simply sharing these articles.
December each year stands out as an anomaly in the website world; advertisers pay top dollar to get impressions on different sites, trying to sell stuff to readers. If things go well, a site can earn a LOT of money very quickly in the last six weeks of the year, just from people reading and sharing pieces on social media. (In accordance with the advertising contracts, this earned money is generally paid two or three months later — but it is guaranteed, once you earn it — so it is super-nice to know what to expect for income two months down the line!)
With all of my advertising contract income last year (2019) combined, my gross earnings from advertising contracts for the year ended up being $58,831.39. This worked out to an average of $4,902.61 a month (gross/ earned — but not paid) in the calendar year 2019. This included earning a high monthly total of $16,054.63 in December 2019 (the most I have ever earned in one month from advertising contracts on the website).
This happened because ONE article went VIRAL at the perfect time of year! The one piece that went viral was an article about Corelle dishes. In one single day (the best day ever on the website — Thursday, December 26, 2019) I had 151,074 unique page views. This was more page views in one single day than I had in many of the previous MONTHS leading up to that date (since I started this site in 2014)!
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Paying my bills with EARNED INCOME! (Not loans!)
While (every day over the past 4+ years) I have HATED that I have had to spend basically all available funds on my legal battle defending my advocacy work (especially since that meant that there were many days, weeks, or months that my family had to go without), the fact that I was able to get 100% current with the forensic bookkeepers working on my legal battle this year — using income I had EARNED from my writing — felt REALLY GOOD!!
I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to support these other small women-owned businesses – contractors who have helped me (time and time again) – prove my innocence against the outrageous attacks of the past 4+ years (baseless false charges that may have otherwise shut down my advocacy work)!
Unfortunately, the battle is still not over – considering I currently have more than $300,000 in debt as a result of the legal challenges of the past four years — and income is down (from what was anticipated) this year with everyone’s health information bandwidth being taken up with the news cycle of COVID-19!
With COVID-19, 2020 has been a distinctly different year.
At the beginning of 2020, I had actually projected that it might be possible to DOUBLE my advertising income this year and to — for the first time in years — have a profitable business that could cover all the bills (including making a good dent in the outstanding debt incurred as a result of the legal battle of the past four years, in addition to covering the personal day-to-day bills for my family).
(If you are not familiar with my legal battle, I am currently suing the State of Oregon in Federal court for multiple counts of civil rights violations against me. You can read the full initial filing of the lawsuit in this article.)
… And then COVID-19 hit.
With COVID-19 dominating the news cycle, even though my readership has been up for most months this year — with 7 of the 10 months so far having the best-ever amount of views for that month here on the site — advertising rates have gone down in 2020.
Instead of an average earning (from advertising contracts) of nearly $5,000 a month in support of my advocacy, my gross advertising contract earnings in March, April, May, June, and July averaged closer to just $3,000 a month for those five months (see chart below) — and now, in the Fall of 2020, things have only just recently started recovering a bit, finally passing $4,000 for the month in August (which is nice, but not nearly enough to cover the bills, let alone also pay down the debt owed for costs related to my ongoing legal battle against the State of Oregon).
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But there’s still the possibility for the tides to change in 2020! With your help!
HOWEVER, now — today (Monday, November 16, 2020) — with your help, I still have the possibility to earn a big chunk of income in November and December. This would be income that is critical in helping pay down my legal team costs and support my advocacy into the new year.
“But why don’t you just wait for your lawsuit to settle in order to pay everyone back, Tamara?”
Last week my attorneys contacted me and told me that the attorney for the State contacted them — and that the State would like to have a mediation meeting with us to see if we can come to a settlement without a jury trial. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! — I’m not quite sure how many exclamation points to include here!)
Theoretically, this may be an interesting opportunity — but with COVID-19 raging around the world (and especially here at home!), the invitation to hold an in-person mediation session (potentially for 8 hours in a room with other people outside of my COVID bubble) is, to say the least, not ideal! After all, I am a mother of medically fragile children and my husband is also currently recovering from surgery. Both I and my youngest son have reactive airway disease (compromised lungs) and would be considered particularly vulnerable if we caught COVID-19. If COVID-19 continues to rage across the country as it has been, it is even likely/possible that in the event that we ARE able to schedule an in-person mediation, the mediation might be canceled last minute because of COVID-19 flare-ups.
Therefore, I’m NOT holding my breath …
Therefore, I am not holding my breath waiting for my case to settle to pay everyone back. Instead, I have been working my ASS off this year so I can pay people back out of earned income (and whatever other additional sources of funds might happen to come my way) — and I have actually been doing an amazing job with that!
As of this moment, I am current on nearly all of my personal and work-related bills, including my mortgage (I just have one outstanding past-due bill!); I have paid off many small long-term debts, and short-term loans to 28 friends and vendors over the past year (as well as many outstanding bills from vendors — like my XRF rental bill), and “only” have outstanding debt and bills to pay to 23 more friends and vendors (including four lawyers I still owe money to for their work on the case). Separately, when the case does eventually settle, I have also offered to my friends to take on the debt for the film that was left unpaid when Lead Safe America was destroyed by this attack … so technically, that brings it up to 28 people (and vendors) who are still owed money as a result of this mess.
I’m digging my way out of this hole (that I was thrust into, via false accusations) WITHOUT a settlement from the State — and this will leave me in a MUCH STRONGER POSITION when it comes time to negotiate a settlement with the State (if in fact that happens).
IF my bills continue to be paid and current (and IF I don’t urgently owe money to countless people), I will be able to hold out for a settlement in my legal case that appropriately compensates me for my losses and for the damage caused to my advocacy work, my professional reputation, and also compensates the community for the losses suffered (losses suffered by the greater community of families of Lead-poisoned children via the wholesale destruction of the Lead Safe America Foundation).
To this end … I need your help — NOT with money, but with sharing articles during this time, the most profitable advertising contract period of the year!
I am writing today (and sharing all of these details with you) so you might be inspired to help me finish out 2020 with strength, and the ability to continue on this trajectory of paying people back and keeping my bills current with earned income through this advocacy work. My goal is to earn enough by the end of the year (=$42,877.91) to pay off 10 more loans — mostly from friends who have generously loaned money over the last few years in support of this fight.
The simplest thing you could do to help make this happen would be to share one or two of our top 10 articles of all time over the next few weeks on your social media pages. These top pieces can be seen in the image below (with the number of views for that article over the course of the history of my website on the far right of the chart).
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So here’s the plan, Stan (& how you can help — specifically):
- Share one or more of these articles (linked below) on your pages from now til the end of the year — and ask your friends and followers to share, too.
- When you share, write a personal message about why the article you chose is important to you, that way folks are more likely to read it! (A note like: “My grandmother had these dishes. Which dishes are you using on your holiday table this year?”)
- Don’t share from my Facebook page; instead, come to the website directly — click on one of the links below to find the piece you’re looking for, then copy the link and paste it on Facebook or Twitter or wherever. (That way, Facebook will be less likely to throttle the reach of the article you choose to share!)
- Please also consider sharing the pieces in Facebook GROUPS you are part of — especially if the article is particularly relevant to that group (a nontoxic parenting group? A collectibles group? A cookware group?). Any group where they may have missed seeing these articles before, and where they might be inclined to share it with their friends now, too!
- That’s it! At the end of the month, I will let my readers know how much I have earned (to be paid in Feb./ March 2021) — how much you helped me earn towards my goal of self-sufficiency and paying down the debt related to my legal defense — during this, the most profitable time of year for the Internet world!
- PLEASE REALIZE, TOO: This work is first and foremost fundamentally about spreading the word about childhood Lead poisoning and potential sources of Lead in our homes and environment. The reason I need to earn as much money as possible is to continue paying my legal defense team, so I can keep doing this work from a strong position and so I will be coming from an equally strong position during any settlement negotiations related to my legal battle.
- If one of these top articles (below) is not super-interesting to you, feel free to pick any other you find on the site — BUT, based on history, sharing articles #1, #2, or #3 below will have the most impact on my bottom line for December. Thank you!
Thank you! And without further adieu, here are the links to share
(in order of preference):
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- Vintage Tupperware
- Pre-2005 Corelle
- Corelle Butterfly Gold Dishes
- My Everyday Dishes
- Lead-Free Mugs
- Vintage Tupperware cup
- Pottery and Lead
- Peanut Butter in Plastic Jars
- Which dishes are Lead-free?
- Crazy Daisy Spring Blossom Dishes
- Safer Choices
- Butterfly Gold Bowls
- Lead Safe Mama Amazon store
- Lead Safe Mama Site Index
- Corning Spice of Life Casserole
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Parting thoughts …
I wanted to let you know that with your help this year, more than 1.5 million people have read this website in the past 12 months. These 1.5 million unique individuals (in over 200 countries) have been responsible for more than 3.5 million page views from November 16, 2019 to November 15, 2020. (See the charts below for all the details!) This is nothing short of a miracle, and for this (for your help in making this happen — in carrying this work around the world) I am forever grateful. Thank you.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
1,510,860 users in the past 12 months:
in 200+ countries in the past 12 months:
… with 3,592,660 page views in the past 12 months:
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