The day has finally come where I feel I need to start taking a monthly income from my ASEAN Hive Community work, so I hope you ASEAN Hivers are understanding and supportive of this move.
🧙♂️ First, A Little ASEAN Hive Lore 📜
From the very beginning of the ASEAN Hive Community I've focused on reinvesting the curation earnings into the community, both building up the @asean.hive curation account HP, and more recently powering down all HP over 10,000 to convert to HBD and put in a community HBD Savings account. The monthly dividends from the new HBD Savings account are dispensed to DIAMOND, PLATINUM and GOLD delegators, with the account now worth $2,700+ and generating more than $40 HBD per month for these delegators.
I spend (too) many hours each day manually curating posts, upvoting engagement, hosting weekly challenges, and raffles, creating curations to generate rewards for featured content creators, delegators, and myself, and much more. Luckily I have a cute kitty to keep me company while I work, and I'm glad to see my efforts over the last few years have helped ASEAN Hive to become and remain one of the top communities on Hive, all by grassroots methods.
🧑⚖️ What Is Fair? ⚖️
My days are now filled with ASEAN Hive work and house-husbanding, so much now that I have little time to earn a side income from my personal blog. I have also been looking to hire someone to help me with my ASEAN Hive duties, but the hours were too long and the profits far too little for anyone to be interested. Things are now a little different with our success though, and now @asean.hive generates nearly 1,300 HP each month.
I have decided that claiming 1,000 HIVE per month will both motivate me to keep ASEAN Hive thriving and make my family worry less about our financial situation. Additionally I won't have to stress about posting daily to earn a modest living from my personal blog, but rather post at least a few times a week to supplement my ASEAN Hive income, allowing me to focus on ASEAN Hive because it helps so many more families than my own.
💲 Salary Creates Sustainability ♻️
With a little information from the HiveStats.io site, I was able to determine this move is sustainable, and will still allow nearly 300 HP each month to help maintain our continued growth and expansion. This monthly income will allow me to assess whether or not running the ASEAN Hive Community can be considered a job that someone else would be interested in helping with and/or possibly taking over one day. I'd hate to think if something happened to me, that this community would have to shut down because nobody else wants run it as a labor of love.
Powering down at least 250 HP every 7 days will allow for this income to be withdrawn, and additionally I'll try to log the massive amount of hours it takes to run this community for one week/month. This year my wife and I plan to do a soft opening of our mini homestay project, and I will likely not have enough time to work full-time for this community like usual. I have a friend moving here from the UK in three months and he is interested to help with ASEAN Hive because he has medical conditions preventing physical work.
It would be really cool to share the load with someone else, because honestly I'd love to spend more time with my family, more time working outdoors, perhaps even start teaching English or Khmer again, and of course I will have more time for blogging and interacting with the posts in our little community. I realize this post has turned into a ramble of sorts, but I just want to provide some insight as to why I am making this move and also why I think it's actually good for ASEAN Hive's future.
NOTE - If you have any objections to this, or even just feedback, alternatives, anything at all, please use the comments section and tell me what you think. By the way, that's not me in the thumbnail, just an AI generation of what it feels like when I'm doing ASEAN Hive work at 2:00 AM.
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I am Jacob from Cebu Philippines and from the bottom of my Heart I want to thank you for all the effort and handwork for putting it here in Asean Hive Community. It's a great joy when our post gain interaction from the People like you who have a humble heart. Id really love to join with you for this advocacy count me in. By the way you have a cute cat... :) cheers
Thank you my friend, it is truly a labor of love because the community members make ASEAN Hive so special. I am lucky to have a cute kitty to keep me company while I work.
In my own opinion, there is no problem with that my friend. You earned it, investing Time, Fucos, hard work and dedications to your Family. Now, I think it is time to reward yourself to support your Family financial Situations.
This is also a good way by making a post so that everyone can understand and have a transparency activities. You have my 💯 support, My Dear Friend. 👍
Thank you, I am glad you understand. I am glad I waited this long to take a salary because now the community is big enough to make it sustainable. ASEAN Hive is my #1 working priority each day when I wake up. 🙏🙏🙏
We are very happy and glad to know that my friend. Our fellow asean hivers will always have hope by keep them supporting from our community especially by you. ☺️👏👏 Salute to you my friend as one of the Generous big Curator.
Maybe this can help inspite of powering down what about a funding from Hive like what others community do.You have helped a lot of Asean hivers and I think all of Asean Hivers or those who are willing to help to invite newbie onboards to grant the funding from Hive and as well as projects for this community.
I have thought about this in the past, but in order to get the votes for that you have to befriend Hive whales by spending tons of time in Discord and courting them with comments on their posts. I hate to admit I don't enjoy reading the content of the majority of Hive whales, and in private chats I have even faced some resistance to the growth of our community from higher ups.
ASEAN Hive is self-funded by grassroots means, and in a way that is what makes us awesome and sustainable. It's nice to not have to worry about proposal votes to keep ASEAN Hive going. With the current size I am able to take a modest salary for my time and still have HIVE and HBD left to keep growing the community.
You all have made it possible, from the smallest to the largest delegations, and through quality content and engagement, we have remained at the top of the Hive Communities for a several years now. 🙏🙏🙏
From my point of view there shouldn't be any objection, since you are spending enough time in this community to begin with. So it's important for your convenience, I think it will allow you to spend time in the community more smoothly. I wish you all the best always.
Thank you for understanding. I am glad though to have waited this long because now the community is sustainable enough for me take this salary. If I had taken a salary the first several years I think it would've stunted the growth of our community. This job is awesome because of so many amazing members like you.
Successfully running a community is more work than most people imagine, unless they've done it. KUDOS to you for all you do, and I hope you get the backing you need! 💜
Thank you my friend. You of all people understand this more than most, the work that is required to keep a community engaging and growing. There doesn't seem to be any objections, and from my math I can take this salary while still continually growing the collective HP for curation.
I don't think anyone will complain about this. It isn't a lot you are asking and you put so much into it. I'm FOR IT!
That means a lot. I am so thankful to have such understanding community members. I am glad to have no taken an income the first several years because I think it would've slowed the growth and made it less likely for me to be able to take the salary that is now available. I would still like to post daily from my blog, but with the passing of each month this dream grows more and more distant.
My wife's health and fatigue are at all-time lows, also my oldest daughter. Although I think it is mostly psychologically induced, it doesn't seem easily fixed. It was a tough choice, but now that I am kind of a full-time caregiver again, it just seems too stressful to stay awake so late at night to earn an income from my blog. This ASEAN Hive salary will allow me to go to bed at a more decent time and not feel guilty. Thanks so much for making this whole thing possible.
well now you made me feel bad. I hope things can improve for you!
No worries my man, if I wanted to make $1,000 USD per month teaching English in a big town, I could do it. I have lived that life in the past, but after our experience in Suriname, I am kind of done with 99% of my fellow human beings. This Hive job allows us the freedom to live in the middle of nowhere, no regrets. I do need to make some changes though, and hopefully this summer I'll have a friend move in with us. With some hired help things will be more consistent, and I can allow my wife to just have free time and focus on her health.
Lately my daughters have taken on this habit too, and it's an unfortunate part of the Khmer culture. There is an illness in Cambodia called "self hurt" in Khmer, and it's kind of like a body ache in English, but it's an excuse that can allow you to miss school 5-6 times a month and even miss work 10 days or more a month. Businesses here always overstaffed because at least 40% of the workforce is going to be sick at any given time. I personally think it's depression, but the locals here don't connect the dots between mental and physical health.
Sorry to ramble, thought might find this interesting. I just saw a study the other day too that says Cambodians are more depressed than folks in Myanmar. Kind of crazy to think a country at war is happier than the average Cambodian.
I always think that you are very busy with community work. And family, you're a really nice person I just met.
Thank you sister. Yes I am far too busy, but it is also very satisfying to know that my work helps so many families in this part of the world.
I didn't realize you were so new to Hive. I tell you what, since you 've brought so much value to ASEAN Hive via your content and engagement, I will delegate you 100 HP from my personal account until you reach 500 HP of your own. I always recommend everyone try and reach 500 HP before worrying about delegations because with 500 HP you have an upvote strong enough to appear in notifications and also can reward your commenters a bit.
Once you have in excess of 500 HP ASEAN Hive is glad to host a delegation from you. Until then just keep building up your account. The HBD Savings 20% interest is hard to resist as well, and I maintain a portion of my Hive wallet in HBD Savings for this reason.
Thanks for being understanding and supportive. We're glad to have new members like you make this place even more awesome.