Something has changed recently and it's already having a significant impact on things with my family. I haven't talked about this yet because I've been preoccupied with other things but it's already creating some challenging situations for us.
When I partner with a company or organization, I almost always announce it, especially if I'm endorsing something. Likewise, when a partnership ends, depending on why it ended, I usually announce it because it keeps everyone on the same page.
Guardian Locate comes to mind. I worked with that project for many years and it was a decent chunk of my income. When I chose to leave, I explained that I didn't agree with the direction it was going in. It was important to me that I announce the separation because I didn't want anyone purchasing something in order to try and keep their child safe, thinking that I was still endorsing it.
Make sense?
As you no doubt are aware, I've been working with the Vivint Gives Back project for a few years now. My job was basically helping to connect families with the project in order to help keep kids that wander safe.
Again, this was the second half of my income.
Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, there was a decision made to terminate the program I worked with. This wasn't isolated to me. It applied to others who were filling the same role.
This was a business decision and it was done in the best interest of the charity as a whole.
It sucks because this was a big part of my life and income. That being said, I understand where they were coming from and it simply meant that we had served our purpose and helped to get things moving. It meant that they were doing well enough and reaching enough people on their own, they had basically out grown the need for people like me.
Anyway, it was tough for both the people at Vivint and myself because we had developed a friendship. However, the priority has to be helping those in need. There is absolutely no hard feelings and I still recommend them to anyone, especially if they are eligible for the Vivint Gives Back program.
This is an amazing company, made up of amazing people who genuinely care. They are helping to save lives and I absolutely support their efforts.
Anyway, this happened a couple of weeks ago and August is the first month that we're trying to make do without the income and it's not going so well.
Between Guardian Locate and Vivint, we've taken about a 40% loss in income. That's not easy to make up for, especially as a full time caregiver, working from home.
We make enough that we don't qualify for government aide but not enough to come close to making ends meet.
We can debate the whole *being a full time caregiver vs going out and getting a job* but let's not. It's simply not an option, at least not at this point in time. Many people, with far greater insight into our lives, have tried and failed to find ways to make me returning to work outside of the home. If it was possible, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with. I need this to be an accepted fact because it's simply the way it is.
I'm not sure how we are going to keep moving forward right now and I'm feeling a tremendous of stress over this. In fact, I'm panicking over this because this was very unexpected and not something we can absorb.
Right now, my focus is on building new advertising partners, increasing my ad revenue both here and on my YouTube channel. There's a tremendous amount of earning potential, especially with YouTube. I'm already doing pretty good but in light of the recent changes in my income, it's no longer just *extra money *and it's not yet enough to offset the loss. I need to grow it.
I also need to diversify and move some eggs into another basket.
I'm going to begin doing more in the way of reviews. I'm already working on some pretty cool reviews and building partnerships for more.
My goal is to help drive traffic through these reviews and I already know that works. This will help with ad revenue and that puts food on the table.
Inevitably, people are going to want to know how they can help. I'll head that off with a few ways you can help us get back on our feet, without donating anything more than a few minutes or a couple clicks.
Ways you can help:
- Share posts you like on social media
- Visit my sponsors, via the ads sprinkled throughout the site (you never to buy anything)
- Return for updates as often as you like
- If you know of any potential partnerships that might be a good fit, please let me know
These are the easiest ways of helping. There's still a donate button if you feel so inclined. That's a quick way to help if that's what you want to do. It's there based on reader request and has traditionally gone towards keeping the site online. Every time I remove it, someone asks what happened to it. It's up to you.
The other ways I talked about are really important because they are free for you, they help me to grow, reach more people and it's sustainable. It's more of a hand up and less of a hand out.
Anyway, that's what's going on.
We're going to have to reevaluate things at home as well. We're looking at switching phone carriers in order to save money each month and a few other things in that vein.
Life is challenging and it's only getting worse because school is right around the corner. Once that happens, there's a significant uptick in appointments for Gavin. This will involve lots of travel. I'll talk about that later on. There are some major updates to share.
Understand that I'm not looking for sympathy. There are plenty of people worse off than we are. I just wanted to explain what was going on because it impacts us on a daily basis. It helps to provide context to things I might be talking about and it's more insight into some of the challenges we face as a family.
