I put a lot of work in this website. While it’s not the most visual stunning website on the Internet, I try to keep it informative and to the point. This is a lot of work and like so many other websites on the Internet I have to get paid for that work somehow. While I do have social welfare from Iceland it’s currently not enough to cover my costs, don’t worry, my budget status is getting better by the month but this is also a slow progress. I won’t be debt free until July-2019 at current rate. Until that month, things are going to be a little difficult for me to keep decent budget while in Iceland, its going to be a slightly better in Denmark (cheaper).
My finances are going to clear up in about three years time. After that I’m implementing a total ban (for my self, I don’t care what other people do) on all bank loans in Iceland (but not in Denmark or Germany [details below on Germany and Denmark(1)]). Ban on other types of loans might also be implemented at the same time (buying phones and such, unless in a emergency). The goal is to clear up payments so I stop being broke all the time, since being broke is no fun and never has been. I’ve learned my lesson in this, but its going to be a difficult time until the clean up is finished and every loan I currently have is paid back.
The reason why my website has simple graphics and not heavy image based articles is simple. I don’t like doing so. This also increases the load time of this website if I would go all graphic as some websites have done in past few years. Such changes would also increase the workload on the sever side and I don’t want to do that, since when a eruption or something happens in Iceland the traffic increases to this website tenfold and sometimes more. It would also increase bandwidth usage by a log and I don’t want to do that either.
It is my view that I want quality over quantity. For that reason I only write about activity in Iceland when something is going on. When it is quiet in Iceland I don’t write a lot on this website and that’s good too, since it allows me to do other writing work that I’m doing, be that stories or writing on some of my other websites (like Spacewatch). Things have been busy in Iceland since 2014 and I don’t think its going to quiet down a lot until sometimes after 2024. But Iceland is now entering period of high volcano activity that might last for up to 80 – 120 years (more details here). This means I’m going to busy for many years writing about Iceland volcanoes and the activity connected to them.
If people are wondering what I get from the Amazon Advertisements it has not been a lot, but the new Amazon CPM advertisements are slightly increasing my income. At the moment I do not get more than $42 a month from Amazon (at the current rate I have my CPM at the moment). For sales I rarely get more then 25 – 40€ paid out every other month (or equal in pounds for Amazon UK). For Amazon U.S I have payment set at 200USD (for the moment), at current rate I should get payment every 2 – 3 months from Amazon CPM advertisements (it is going to take longer for the sale part to get up to 200USD). Amazon also pays out 60 days after the month I reach the minimal payment threshold. I don’t plan on adding Google Adsense back to this website, the rules Google (Alphabet) are difficult, it also pays worse than Amazon (based on what I’m seeing at the moment).
I hope this article didn’t bother too many people. Thanks for reading.
Footnote 1
The reason why I don’t ban loans in Denmark or Germany is that loans in Denmark and Germany have decent policy on payments and interest rates (this is not the case in Iceland). There is also a wider option then just expensive overdraft loan from the bank, as is the case in Iceland. Besides overdraft loans in Iceland, there are just credit card loans available in Iceland and they are not much better then overdraft loans when it comes to interest rates and such details. I’ve also come to the conclusion that loans, in general are a drain on once finances. Besides a loan to buy a house sometimes in the future, I plan on staying away from them view few minor exceptions. One of those exception is the fact I need to get a loan so I can pay the insurance for an apartment in Denmark, but the interest rate is decent and first five years don’t have to pay any interest at all (the total time for the loan is 10 years, half of that time has 4,5% interest rate). The loan is with the multiplicity, not a bank.