A Candlemas Request

Hello folks, this is  only your periodic reminder that Steel Magnificat, and my family, are almost entirely run on gratuities. I work from home as a writer due to my chronic illness, churning out three to seven literary art projects per week here, my husband copyedits for me, and he’s also the homemaker who takes care of Rosie and does the housework since I’m so often too sick to get off the sofa or out of the house. I get a very small monthly check from Patheos based on clicks, and the rest of my family’s income is based on tips from satisfied readers. Think of it as a magazine subscription where you pay whatever you think my writing is worth and you get to read even if you don’t.

We are extremely grateful for everyone who tips– we get a lot of small five-and-ten-dollar tips and a few large ones; some people sign up through Paypal to tip at the same time every month and some just do when they can. Some months we’re comfortable, and some months we make next to nothing, but we have been getting by ever since this blog started thanks to you guys. You literally keep the lights on for us.

We find it especially helpful when people sign up with Paypal to tip automatically at the same time every month, because that makes planning ahead household spending week to week way easier. And obviously we understand if you need to cancel at any time.

The winter is always a low-income and high-utility-bill time. We’re grateful to those who helped us in January, which was definitely easier than last January. February is going to be a difficult challenge, because thanks to the shutdown we got  all the EBT we’re going to get until March two weeks ago and we spent it already so we could spend our cash on my medicine– I’m seeing  a very good internist for my fibromyalgia, but she could find no better or cheaper treatment for the disabling fatigue and dizziness than the weird diet and pricey blend of over-the-counter herbal and vitamin supplements I’ve been taking to stabilize it. She tested me for literally everything else, and this is all we came up with. Through juggling expenses to pay for things Medicaid doesn’t, we’ve built up almost a thousand dollars of due and past due utility bills, that we simply had nothing left to pay at the end of January.

On top of that, Rosie discovered when she went out to play that her snowboots from last year are too small. And both of Michael’s let in water.

So, as always, I ask: if you like what you read, give me a tip! Just click on the tab marked “donate” under the Steel Magnificat banner, then click on the yellow  button and PayPal will walk you through the rest.