MONEY STRUGGLES
I Can’t Afford to be a Friend of Medium
$10 isn’t much, but it is to me
Everyone’s been writing about why they’ve signed up to be a Friend of Medium. It kind of made me feel guilty because, while I also want to support other writers, I simply can’t afford the extra $10 a month.
When I first heard new a friend tier was coming to Medium, I was curious what it would be. Tony even replied to one of my comments, asking me what I thought it was. I replied that I hoped it’d be a feature to mark people we follow as friends so we have access to a smaller, more manageable list of stories from our favourite writers. That’s a feature I’d like.
Anyway, when I found out last week what the friend tier really is, I also thought that was a cool idea. Especially if it does end up supporting other writers more. I’m in wait-and-see mode for that, though.
But for the second half of this year, I’ve been decimated financially by some unexpected and ridiculously-priced maintenance I had to pay for on the apartment I own in Melbourne. To help cover the costs, I had to cancel my planned trip to visit family in Australia this Christmas. Every time I think about how much I had to fork out, I throw up in my mouth a little.
My salary is budgeted down to the last euro. I do side gigs on top of side gigs. But unless you’re stinking rich, I’ve discovered you can’t have financial commitments in two countries. I’ll have to do something about this next year.
Anyway, that’s all very boring and other people have it far worse off than me. But, for now, I can’t afford to upgrade to a Friend of Medium. Even though I am friendly to Medium and all the wonderful writers on here.
