Friends, Zoomers, Democrats: it is seldom that I come to the community with my hat in hand. This has never been one of those sites where we beg for money daily and send screaming emails, “My hair is on fire and the sky is falling,” at least once a month.
We pull own own weight around here. And we’re doing well. But the old adage, “It takes money to make money,” has caught up with us. With me, personally.
Briefly, I have expanded PolitiZoom. You’ve all noticed that Durrati is here and doing stellar work. Plus, we have expanded our presence on Twitter and by the alchemy of the internet, we’re risen in the search engines. I’m sure you’ve all seen the MAGAs in the comments section on high performing pieces. That’s the search engine doing its thing.
That’s the good news. The “bad” news is that I have been paying for this out of my own pocket and my resources are totally exhausted. I have advanced Durrati’s salary, and paid for the social media expansion myself.
The final straw came a few days ago when the site started to load slowly, on a heavy traffic day and I spoke with our hosting provider and bottom line, we were using twice the resources that we were paying for — ergo, we had to pay for a higher bracket of service.
I took my last remaining funds out of my checking and savings accounts and immediately paid for an upgrade because I was terrified of a site crash and didn’t want to risk it. And I have nothing left. I can’t even buy gas or eat from now until the 16th when the ad provider pays us unless some of you kind folks here can kick out a few bucks. Also, the money I put into this blog was money earmarked for car maintenance, car registration, dental visits, co pays, all that. I put it all in here, and now I don’t have it for the purposes I saved it for.
This blog was started on a completely grass roots level in March of 2018. We will be five this March. We used to have 20 views on a piece, then we went to a couple of hundred. Our monthly views were in the thousands, then ten thousands, then hundreds of thousands. I project that the days of millions of views are ahead of us. Totally grass roots. Totally reader supported and independent.
We didn’t do it alone. Nothing like this is ever done alone. The other writers here are not only fine writers they are great people. Murfster and Mopshell and myself worked for free last year when we had an ad restriction put into place by Google AdSense that lasted almost three months and caused us to lose thousands of dollars. Denis, our wonderful moderator and administrator, only recently started to get paid. He donated free labor, plus he even posts fine content on top of it.
So we all worked for free. That’s the only reason this blog is still here. The dedication to this site is remarkable.
And our readers are remarkable, too. You are the only reason we’re here. Murfster said many years ago, “You are the wings beneath our wings” and indeed you are that.
If you can help with anything at all, I would appreciate it. Any funds that are received above and beyond my immediate needs will be kept in the business account for future needs and periods of growth.
And believe me, I’m not complaining. I love seeing the traffic soar into high numbers. It’s just that somebody has had to pay for things and the buck stops with me.
Thank you.
My PayPal is [email protected].
And if you want to click here to become a patron on Patreon that would be even more wonderful still.
Ursula, I’d like to help but I don’t/won’t use paypal. Any other option?
Would Zelle work for you? Same email. Or, you can email me and I can give you a physical mailing address. Would that work?
I just made a monthly pledge. I went ahead and did it through your red button with paypal after all. It’s not a lot and I wish I could do more because I spend a lot of time here and appreciate your work.
The red button is Patreon. That’s a different service altogether from PayPal.
I can’t thank you enough for your support. As Murf says, “You’re the wind beneath our wings.”
Ursula: I don’t receive my SS deposit until the 21st but I would be happy to send something through Zelle after I get paid. No Paypal at the moment. Venmo, yes.
That would be very welcome. Believe me, in a little while I’m going to go put some gas in the car and maybe go through a drive-thru and then I’ll go buy groceries. I rarely get to this place but the simple fact is that we had one expense after another. And then a few days ago I thought the site might crash and I freaked and bought the upgrade. And I’m glad I did rather than play Russian roulette with the traffic and the hosting provider.
Zelle is fine. Use Zelle. And thank you very much.
If you also give me an actual address I’ll be glad to drop a check in the mail.
Email me at [email protected] and I’ll share it with you. If I share it publicly Mike Lindell will have his trolls on my doorstep.
I’m so sorry, Ursula! I’ll definitely send you something on PayPal today, and I’ll try to send something monthly. I really enjoy the site, with you, Murph, Durrati, etc.; and would like to see it survive.
Thank you, Judy. We’re actually doing fine, much much better than last year when we had incompetent technical support and I was firing companies and hosting providers right and left. What an odyssey that was. The problem now is that the past three months has been one expense after another and we have doubled our overhead, basically. We will catch up but it won’t be overnight. It takes a while and you’re helping us out right now, when it’s needed. Thank you.
I just went to Paypal and typed in the address you gave out. Is “PK” you?
Write me at [email protected]. All will be revealed.
Ursula, I have joined the fourth level in honor of my husband, Jay Roth, who recently passed away. He loved your site and especially you and Murphy. Blessed be from an Earthwalker. )O(
I’m often several days late browsing through the posts, and just saw this. Sent a donation, hope “better late than never” is sufficient