A Way to Support This Work
A short pitch:
I make all content on The Oar and the Umbrella available for free, but if you appreciate this writing and have the financial means, please consider joining as a paid subscriber. I offer free subscriptions because I believe in the open flow of ideas without the interference of money, and also because I don’t want a lack of money to keep anyone from reading my writing. At the same time, the writing takes work, and if you find it meaningful, please consider a paid subscription.
Each paid subscription is a significant support to my writing. What you see on this Substack is only one dimension of my writing work. Most mornings, I awake at about 5 a.m. and spend the first two or three hours of the day on writing projects. Besides the essays I publish here, I’m also rewriting a book I finished a year ago and exploring publishing options. Each monetary gift gives me confidence to keep dedicating time to writing while also helping put food on my family’s table.
That’s my pitch. For those interested in financial transparency, which can make for more healthy relationships around money, read on.
***
As I prepared to launch this Substack, I pondered whether to make this site totally free, only available to paid subscribers, or a mix of the two, with some content available to everyone and some limited to those who pay. Offering it for free matches my deepest aspirations in which money is not the primary vehicle for social relationships. On the other hand, money is a regular concern in my family as it is for most families.
Finally, my wife hit upon the solution that makes most sense to me: be transparent about our own finances, offer a sliding scale to subscribers, and offer all content for free to subscribers who can’t pay.
Culturally, it is taboo to describe one’s financial situation to others. Many, maybe most, are stressed by money in one way or another, but we are taught to keep quiet about it. The few times I have practiced with a friend sharing our financial contexts, it has been liberating and mutually supportive. So I’m going to give it a try here. I won’t go into all our details, but I will offer some, then end with my approach to subscriptions.
In 2022, my family made about $28,500. In 2021, we made about $21,700. While that’s below my country’s poverty rate, it’s not the whole story. We also live on land my mother owns, and many of our friends are small farmers and gardeners. That means we have abundant access to nourishing food, which many people with incomes greater than us do not. Also, compared to the global population, we are financially wealthy.
My wife and I have made a decision to de-emphasize economic pursuits and to labor at home as much as possible. I work for wages part-time on a farm. She works for wages part-time as a Certified Nursing Assistant at a memory care facility.
Most of our labor time goes to projects at home. For several years, we dedicated this time to rebuilding a log house from the 1870s. Now living in that house, we carry in and out our water, heat and cook on a wood stove during seven months of the year, and aren’t wired for electricity. We homeschool our two children, grow a big, weedy garden, and I spend most of my daylight hours building infrastructure.
With all of that as context, my approach to subscriptions follows.
If you cannot pay at this time, you can subscribe to all content for free. I will be grateful you have given my writing some of your attention.
If you can commit to a paid subscription, I would like to offer a sliding scale, in which you choose an amount you’d like to pay, but the Substack platform doesn’t have this choice. So you’ll have three options:
$5 per month
$50 per year
$150 founding member
For all these, I will be grateful you’ve given my writing some of your attention.
Finally, if you would like to offer a different gift than money, or if you prefer to send cash or check via the mail rather than participate in the digital economy, email me and we can make arrangements.