01/24/2026
To those of you who’ve supported me over the years—by hiring me or joining my Patreon—please know that without you, I wouldn’t even be able to afford the simple life I have. I’m deeply grateful for you.
I’m going to say something plainly: I’m not rich. I rent a one-bedroom apartment. I drive a 2010 Ford Explorer. I don’t go on vacations to Mexico or Hawaii. Groceries are $200 a trip. Gas can be $120 a fill. Just to survive here in Ontario, Canada, I’m paying roughly $3,600 a month.
And yet… I’m apparently “greedy” for wanting to be paid for my work.
Over the years, I’ve given an enormous amount of free help—because I genuinely wanted to make things better and support people who couldn’t afford assistance. That generosity never paid my bills, but I kept doing it anyway.
Eventually, I set up a Patreon so people could chip in $1, $10, or hire me for consulting. Even $10 a month helped cover gas. That wasn’t “commercialization.” That was survival.
Many of you may have noticed I removed about 60% of my Facebook friends. A large portion of those people only contacted me when they wanted free advice. They weren’t there when I needed an ear. They weren’t there when I needed technical help. And more often than not, when I reached out, they simply didn’t reply.
I’ve done work for companies that I took from barely functional to fully operational—only to be told they “didn’t like my work” and then stiffed hundreds of dollars. In some cases, they even lied about me publicly when I tried to pursue what I was owed.
I’ve had people ask me to do things far outside the scope of what any consultant would reasonably do, then get upset when I asked them to handle those tasks themselves.
I’ve even had people weaponize my being LGBT to discredit me or throw it in my face—which is completely irrelevant to my skill or professionalism. And yes, this still happens.
The WISP industry in the U.S. imploded, which wiped out most of my work. I relied too heavily on that and paid for it. I’ve taken side jobs as a handy person just to keep afloat, and even that work is hard to find right now.
So when people get angry at me for charging for consulting or putting tutorials behind Patreon, it tells me something important:
They were never “on Team Sarah.”
They were just expecting free labor.
When I get overwhelmed or depressed and need to vent—because I genuinely don’t have many people to lean on—I lose friends. I lose work. That really drives home how conditional people’s support is if you don’t fit the neat little “family with 2.5 kids and 3 cars” template.
So here’s the boundary:
My tutorial content is now on Patreon under the $3/month tier.
If that bothers you, unfollow me.
I’m done being used.
I’m done pretending my time and expertise have no value.
I’m done setting myself on fire to keep other people warm.
I didn’t ask to live in this capitalist nightmare where people can go on three vacations a year and still call me greedy for wanting to be paid for my work.
Take whatever you want from this—but I’m done sacrificing myself for people who wouldn’t show up for me when I needed them.
