Where are we?
To start, yes, this is a different type of blog post than I usually make. I have in the past made similar titled update posts. However, this one’s going to be a bit more personal. This post is unrelated to do-it-yourself content and therefore could be skipped, however I’d ask that you continue reading. This is an important blog post that is going to focus on the future of the website and trying to make it sustainable in the long run.
Behind The Scenes: The Unfortunate Money Talk
I have been running the blog for a year now, buying products and writing reviews. Although money has not been a topic I ever wanted to bring up, the cost adds up from buying products to either review or use for projects. In the past, I have used affiliate links to offset the above costs. However, Amazon is not a great place for do-it-yourself products. One can see my porch light review and how buying a product from Home Depot or another big box store would be better than buying on Amazon.
I liked the idea of using affiliate links because I could link to products I truly enjoyed and it did not interrupt the experience of the website. However, the poor quality of the products and the lack of profitability made the affiliate links not sustainable.
I then turned to the dark side… advertisements. The advertisement idea was already not what I wanted to do. Then I discovered the advertisements were even worse than I could have imagined. The ads available fell into two categories: very intrusive or were inappropriate for the content of the website. While I would like the website to be more sustainable financially, I also am not willing to compromise the integrity of the website that I built for the sake of money.
I created this website to help others not to make a profit, however to continue helping others I am going to need some kind of revenue to buy or even rent equipment to test out different DIY projects. So after searching for a while for a product that would work without negatively affecting the website, I have found Buy Me a Coffee.
Buy Me a Coffee: The Future Moving Forward
I hope that by allowing donations, I can make the website more sustainable and hopefully further improve the quality of the website. There are several goals for the website that I can only meet with donations. For example, I would love to showcase a novice perspective on woodworking.
I feel like woodworking and home DIY can go hand in hand such as when I built a shelf. The shelf was fine, but I did not have the woodworking tools or experience to build it better. Other than branching to different topics, I would also like to do bigger projects, such as installing a French drain or a privacy fence, both projects that require renting equipment.
The donations would also enable the purchase and testing of more products/tools, perhaps slightly expensive ones, and give my honest opinions. One such tool that would be a Propress tool for plumbing, but it is 200 dollars, which is too much to spend right now on one tool.
The last way donations will help increase the quality of each post is by allowing for more time for those posts increases. The added time is one reason the time in between posts went from every week to almost every month. Editing the pictures alone takes several hours, such as correcting the lighting and adding arrows to better illustrate what I’m trying to show.
A long-term goal would be to cut back at my full-time job even if it is only a little, as the free time would allow me to focus on the blog more. To summarize, by accepting donations, I can branch out, buy and test products more often, and eventually invest a greater portion of my time on the blog.
Where the Personal Stuff Comes In
I rather not be talking about money or my personal life as I find both to be distracting from the do it yourself focus of the blog. However, if I ask for donations, I don’t expect people to donate without at least knowing who they are donating to.
To introduce myself, I am a 24-year-old novice in the do-it-yourself community with no licensed training in anything electrical, plumbing, or automotive. Although I am not trained in any trade, I hope to use my inexperience to connect to others who may want to do projects but are also inexperienced.
Why Projects are Difficult for me
While my inexperience is a part of the reason projects are difficult for me, there is another reason which some people may have already noticed. When I was 19, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, which impacts the projects I do and, more broadly, life.
I would not be sharing all of this information if I did not believe it to be relevant. I believe that the experience I have with doing projects is directly linked to me having ADD and, to be transparent with the reader, I believed it relevant to talk about.
While I feel that my condition is relevant to the blog now, it was not always the case. In the beginning, I felt that each post was irrelevant to my condition and that by introducing it, I would be hindering the blog. However, how I work on a project is directly correlated to how my brain functions and the shelf install post, which will be the next post, highlights the correlation perfectly.
Conclusion
This post took longer to make than normal because of the constant reworking of it. Talking about money and my diagnoses are difficult topics. I don’t want people to donate because they feel a certain way about the author. I would like people to donate because of the value each post brings. However, I would like the reader to know the author more so that donating does not feel like it is going to some nameless entity.
Perhaps one day I will be comfortable enough for a face reveal so that you, as the reader, can feel even more connected with each post. While this blog is about do-it-yourself, it is also about the struggle of being a novice and making mistakes along the way, which I believe brings the community more closely together. For now, I hope that the new information on me as the author helps connect you as the reader to the blog.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this more personal style blog and I will see you all in the shelf install post coming much sooner than this post did. P.S. here is my Buy Me a Coffee again.
