The following is the extended edition of the response to “Why are you on Patreon?” with spiffy tables! 😛

What is Budget Explorers?

Well, B.E. Budget Explorers is an effort to empower people to reach their financial goals. As Budget Explorers, clients not only learn basic budgeting strategies, but they also reflect on what they want in life, and use that as a foundation for creating, revising, and maintaining a budget.

So without further ado…

 

Why Patreon?

Patreon is a way to support creative folks on an ongoing basis, either monthly (like BE Budget Explorers) or by creative work produced.

“But Patreon is for artists,” some might say. Some people are artists by virtue of their writing, painting, drawing, photographing, etc. To me, finding the right budget is a creative process; helping someone find the right match for them at that point in their life, even more so. I strongly believe that the surest sign of a successful budget is not how “correct” it appears objectively, but how closely it adheres to the personal vision and creative dreams of the person who will use it.

My passion, my creative dream, is to make resources regarding financial literacy (particularly budgeting) not only available to everyone, but to help deconstruct some of the fear that can be associated with money and budgeting, especially those who would otherwise not have access to such resources. Supporting me on Patreon will allow me to work with clients who cannot yet afford my rates and help me to maintain a budgeting blog, filled with subjects requested by readers, patrons, clients, and friends.

 

So how does this work?

Patreon has two main ways that creators refer to money received. First, Goals indicate that if overall patronage totals a certain amount, the creator will do whatever is set out in the summary of that goal, usually an additional product. Second, Rewards are what individual patrons receive, and you can think of it sort of like a store: you pay a certain amount to get the product described.

(Patreon offers patrons the option to pledge any amount, and the rewards available to a patron are those with prices equal to or less than the amount pledged. So if the reward options are $1, $5, $25, and $100, and you want to give $10 per month, you could do that and choose to get the reward listed for $1 or $5.)

 

Ok, so what are the Rewards?

Currently, BE has five Rewards available.

Amount Reward
$1 digital hugs and lots of gratitude, occasional patron-only updates
$5 early access to 2+ blog posts per month
$25 monthly polls about what reflection topics you want to see in upcoming months
$50 early access to monthly Q&As
$100 Wow! We will discuss by email or Patreon message a reward worthy of your awesomeness!

 

And what Goals do you have?

Excellent question. Here are the goals for the Patreon:

At this amount… …this will be posted (for patrons of levels listed above)
$50 Current level: 2+ reflection posts per month
$100 2+ reflection posts per month, 1 Q&A per month
$250 3+ reflection posts per month, 1 Q&A per month
$500 4+ reflection posts per month, 1 Q&A per month
$1000 6+ reflection posts per month, 1 Q&A per month
$1500 8+ reflection posts per month, 1 Q&A per month
$2000 2+ reflection posts per week, 1+ informational interview per month, 1 Q&A per month
$5000 2+ reflection posts per week, 1+ informational interview per week, 1 Q&A per month

So, what do you say? 🙂