In Lieu of a Donation Drive…

Hey, today’s my 39th birthday, which seems like as good a time as any to remind all of you of that little “donate” tab up in the menu bar for anyone who might want to pitch in a few bucks to help keep this site up and running (you can also donate directly here). The last few months have been a turning point as far as ad revenue goes, and I’m hopeful that things will continue growing in that area, but for now I could still use some help to keep things afloat. It’s been a year since I did a donation drive, and I’ve decided not to do another one while instead making this friendly reminder that any help you want to give is much appreciated. You can make a one-time donation of a few dollars, or sign up for automatic monthly payments that you can cancel at any time. There have been some months when unexpected expenses popped up and those monthly donations from generous readers saved the site from going dark for a while. So, again, thank you, thank you, thank you!

And if you’re curious, here’s a breakdown of how the money is spent (both from donations and from ad revenue, which covers the bulk of the expenses now):

$3500 covers a year of server fees. This is basically like paying the bill that keeps electricity on. Or, even more accurately, the rent that pays for DW’s housing.

$200 covers an entire week of posting. I pay our babysitter $200 a week for three mornings of childcare and that’s when I write the bulk of the content for the week. (I also work during naps and in the evenings and on the weekends a bit, and I use that time for marketing, reading emails, reading and editing guest submissions, and, of course, moderating and replying to comments, which I try to do throughout each day).

$100-$150 covers a year of stock photos.

$20 per year covers the domain name (dearwendy.com).

$15 per year covers domain mapping.

$10 covers a month of thumbs. You know how you can click the thumbs-up for comments you like? Well, that’s a plugin that costs ten bucks a month. Now you know!

$5 covers a month of spam filtering. You know how there’s never much spam in the comments? That’s thanks to a plugin, and that plugin costs five bucks a month.

Additionally, each year, I also spend anywhere from $500-$2500 on tech assistance and web development. Your donations help cover those costs so we can continue having a functional and easy-to-navigate site to use. (Also, as I begin making more money, my goal in the next few months is to create a much more reader-friendly mobile site).

And if there’s anything left over (which there hasn’t been lately since I haven’t done a donation drive in a year and have been relying mostly on ad revenue to run the site), it goes toward advertising on social media.

Also, special thanks to my mom, who copy edits every post for free. (And if you see a typo or mistake, it’s probably because I didn’t get copy to her early enough to edit before I posted. After 20+ years of teaching middle school and high school English, she has an eagle eye for errors).

If you’d like to contribute, you can do so here; you can make a one-time donation or click the little box to make a recurring monthly donation. It’s also a great help to me if you click through my Amazon widget in the sidebar before making purchases on that site (I get a commission that way). As always, thank you so much for your support!