Financial update time. I missed last month because I was lazy. Sorry.
Expenses, a couple of changes:
- The biggest expenses were the previously-discussed honorariums to @anon46587892 and @zikzak. This was SUPPOSED to have been $200 each. But @anon46587892 had to be paid in Canada-money, so there was a $4.99 paypal charge added.
- Reimbursed @zikzak $160 for two months of hosting fees.
- We’ve lowered the hosting level back down to what it was before the election craziness. We’ve also increased the cloud storage that we have. The net is that we’ve gone from $80/month to a little less than $50/month. (The January invoice was $47.69, but I’m not sure if that’s going to vary month to month.) If you have questions about hosting or storage space, @zikzak is probably the one to ask.
- The hosting fees are now paid directly by me, on my credit card. Previously they had been paid by @zikzak and I reimbursed him.
Donations:
- 3 paypal donations since the last update.
- On Patreon we have 22 active patrons, which brought in a gross of $131.66 in the most recent month, and a net of $114.64.
- No gift card donations
Current Balances:
Patreon: $1,888.75
Paypal: -$17.88
Total: $1,870.87
The negative paypal balance is a little odd, but here’s what it means:
- Most of our donations come via Patreon. But I’ve never actually withdrawn any money from that account. Every dollar that has been donated to Patreon (net of fees) has just accumulated in that account.
- All of our expenses are paid out through my Paypal account. For a while, that was no problem because people had made cash donations through paypal so the balance was always positive. But with the most recent reimbursement to @zikzak, plus the big honorariums, the Paypal balance went negative and I had to pay some from my own account.
- This is obviously not a problem overall, since the Patreon account has plent of funds. But it does mean that at some point I’m going to withdraw from that account.
The Ad balance continues to sit in a Google account, un-gettable by us despite @zikzak’s many efforts. If anyone has any personal contact at Google that might be able to help us out, please let me know.
So that’s it for the finances. If anyone wants more detail or has interest in taking over as treasurer, let me know.
As always, thanks to all of you who have donated - it’s very generous of you. I enjoy this community and I’m glad to play a small part in keeping it running. At this point, I think the best donation you can make is to recruit more smart/funny/interesting people to join the community.