Finally, a financial update. The post I’m replying to has a good summary of the process I go through and where the money is. Nothing has really changed from that summary, other than losing a couple of monthly donations, so I’m not going to copy it here.
Expenses: I’m still paying $45 a month to Digital Ocean for hosting fees.
Incoming money:
Patreon is bringing in about $110 a month with a little variation. Every dollar that’s ever been donated via Patreon is still on Unstuck’s account. I haven’t withdrawn anything. (This will need to change.)
There haven’t been any recent donations to Paypal.
Current balances:
Patreon: $2,385.28
Paypal: -$97.88 (this means that UP owes me $97.88 for the cumulative payments I’ve made, but not been reimbursed for. This is why I said earlier I’ll need to start withdrawing some money from Patreon. I mean, it’s not a huge amount, but the treasurer–whether it’s me or someone else–shouldn’t be owed money by the site.)
Total: $2,287.40
We have 20.90 Brave Rewards (BAT), but I still don’t have any idea what they are, and I don’t yet have a crypto wallet to link to them. Should probably set that up now to take advantage of the DIP.
As always, thanks to everyone who is donating or has donated.
Yes, I have control over the Patreon and my plan is to withdraw money from that account and note that process in these updates. I just haven’t gone through the effort to connect my bank account to it in order to enable those withdrawals. It really isn’t something that’s bothering me, though, just something that I want to make clear for anyone who’s keeping track.
A financial update. You can find a detailed description of how I keep track of things here. Nothing much is different, other than we’ve continue to drop a bit on the donation front. (This isn’t a complaint, just a statement of fact.) The hosting continues to run $45/month, which I pay on my personal credit card, and donations continue to be above that amount. If we need to upgrade to $80/month (which jmakin suggested at some point in the past, but I don’t know enough to know whether that’s necessary), we’ll be just about at breakeven:
Every dollar that’s ever been donated via Patreon is still on Unstuck’s account - I haven’t withdrawn anything. (I keep saying that this will change so that I can be reimbursed for what I’ve spent. But I’ve been too lazy to do that so far.)
No recent donations via Paypal.
Current balances:
Patreon: $2,576.43
Paypal: -$187.88 (this means that UP owes me $187.88, which at some point I will withdraw from Patreon. I just haven’t done it yet.)
Total: $2,388.55
Thanks for everyone who is donating or has donated.
It’s been way too long since I’ve updated things. Sorry for the break.
Detailed description of how I keep track of things here.
We have continued to drop on the donation front. We are still slightly over the monthly hosting fee, but not by much ($66 incoming donations vs. $49 hosting fee; the hosting fee has increased from $45 because Digital Ocean has finally starting charging sales tax on the monthly amount.)
Every dollar that’s ever been donated via Patreon is still on Unstuck’s account - I haven’t withdrawn anything. (I continue to pay hosting fees on my credit card, but I also continue to be too lazy to actually set up the transfer from Patreon to reimburse what I’ve spent.)
No recent donations via Paypal.
Current balances:
Patreon: $2,899.69
Paypal: -$394.74 (this means that UP owes me $394.74, which at some point I will withdraw from Patreon.)
Total: $2,504.95
Thanks to everyone who is donating or has donated.
I’m hesitant to encourage people to stop donating, but that’s mainly because I’m incredibly conservative and don’t like to think about the idea of the site going under. But your point is valid (and your math is obviously correct). I think it’s a big part of why it’s important to post regular updates - to let donors and potential donors know exactly what our financial status is, so they can make an informed judgment about whether they should continue/start donating.
Thanks for your updates, and I agree with you. I stopped donations a few months back only because it looks like we’re flush with money. If that changes, I’ll start up again.
Another belated update.
Detailed description of how I keep track of things here.
Donations are stable and slightly over the monthly hosting fee, ($70 incoming donations vs. $49 hosting fee)
No recent donations via Paypal.
Every dollar that’s ever been donated via Patreon is still on Unstuck’s account - I haven’t withdrawn anything. BUT THIS IS CHANGING. I finally set up my information with Patreon so that I can get reimbursed for the hosting fees that I’ve been paying (since late 2020). The Patreon account is frozen for a few days (as they do to an account any time a new payout method is added), but once that freeze is up I plan on making a withdrawal.
Current balances:
Patreon: $3,116.30
Paypal: -$539.88 (this means that UP owes me $539.88, which is the amount I plan to withdraw from Patreon)
Total: $2,576.42
Thanks to everyone who is donating or has donated.
Another belated update, with a bit of a wrinkle.
Detailed description of how I keep track of things here.
Donations are have dipped a little, but still slightly over the monthly hosting fee, ($59 incoming donations vs. $49 hosting fee)
No recent donations via Paypal.
Every dollar that’s ever been donated via Patreon is still on Unstuck’s account - I haven’t withdrawn anything. This is where the wrinkle comes in. I had planned to withdraw enough money from Patreon to cover what I’ve put in so far. And I even connected my checking account successfully. But apparenly you cannot make a partial withdrawal.
Current balances:
Patreon: $3,307.88
Paypal: -$685.02 (this means that UP owes me $685.02, which is the amount I would have withdrawan from Patreon if partial withdrawals were allowed)
Total: $2,622.86
So I have two choices, neither of which seem very good to me:
Continue funding UP each month and let the IOU continue to grow until some undefined date where I finally decide to withdraw?
Withdraw the full $3,307.88 balance, even though that’s enormously more than what I’m actually owed. That would leave me holding $2,622.86 of UP’s money in my own personal accounts, which would slowly be bled down with the monthly payments I make.
Like I said, I don’t love either option. Any thoughts? Maybe someone just ship me one of those fancy monkey pictures and we call it even?
Thanks to everyone who is donating or has donated.
If I donate back to Patreon, yes, there are fees - about 5%. That seems like burning cash for no good reason at all. If you mean donate through paypal, that just goes to my account, so doesn’t really address the issue.
It’s more than $60, even if I were right (I’d be pulling it all out, then donating back the $2,622. At 5%, that’s $130 or so.) But looking at it now, I was only looking at part of the story:
The difference between what you all donate and what lands in UP’s account on Patreon actually consists of two pieces: “Processing Fees” and “Patreon Fees”. I am not interested enough to look up the difference between them, but Processing Fees have been running about 6-7% of gross donations, while Patreon Fees have been a steady 5%. So, for example, May 2022’s net donation received was only 88.43% of the gross number.
If it’s anything like that amount for a one-time donation, then it would eat up about $300, which is not something I would be comfortable with.
Pretty sure you could start a second PayPal account for free (you’d just need to use a different e-mail) and park the money there, but I could be wrong. If you can pay for the hosting from a PayPal account that might be optimal for you if you don’t want to comingle funds.
This doesn’t really solve the issue of “spidercrab has a bunch of UP money in his personal paypal account”. Which, admittedly, is not terribly different from “spidercrab has control of the Patreon account that holds a bunch of UP money”, but that feels different to me.
True but it’s also different than “spidercrab has a bunch of UP money in his personal bank account.” You could make the account e-mail and name like UPtreasurer@whatever, and it would go with the job.
Most of this is semantics and I think it’s safe to say we the people of UP trust you, so it’s really up to you what you’re comfortable with. I think whatever you decide on, if you put it up for a vote it would pass convincingly.
