SteemFest: Update! The State of My Purse

Hey guys! Thanks for checking in with me again 💖

The quest for SteemFest trip funds continues!! ✨

Analysis of Recent Rewards

The article I wrote asking for ideas on how to fund my SteemFest trip made the most $Ð, but this isn't the type of article that one would typically write, so we can discount it.

Clearly my most valuable article was the # free-templates post. Not simply the top earner, but the one that gave the most value to the most people. This makes sense, everyone wants the site to look nicer and free is appealing. I'll do my best to provide the community with more of this kind of material.

The inspiration of Mr. Rogers did well, too. He has touched many lives, so this makes sense too. I have been inspired by many things in my life, so these kinds of articles should be fairly easy. However, I purposefully made that article image heavy. It was fairly time-consuming, but my assumption that "visual posts do better" seems to hold true so far. That's something to keep in mind for any future posts I make.

To my great surprise my video game streem did very well. I'm not sure if it's because of how soon after I posted it after my SteemFest post, if it's because people liked the particular games I played, if it's because the idea of # streeming is so new here, or something else. Ironically this post also got flagged with no comment as to how it could have been made better. Hopefully my next streem won't get flagged for the same reason or the person will at least tell me why.

The other thing I noted is that my commentaries on the two YouTube videos did not do well at all. Is this because I didn't add value? Is it because these videos were already too well known? Do they not topically appeal to steemians? I'm not sure why there were so few votes on these. I'll do a few more of those kinds of posts to see if the trend continues.

The Issues with Funding via Upvotes

Today, on the internal Steem Market steem sold for as low as 0ȿ26 to 1$Ð. This is tied to the massive dumps of steem for XBC. Personally, I think whoever is buying at those prices is genius. They will make bank in 5 years. However, this is a problem for me in the short term. Larger percentages of steem are being paid out on posts, as can be seen in the above chart. Meanwhile I'm trying to pay to get to Amsterdam. Hopefully we see a rise soon. Personally, I think it should be selling closer to 0ȿ81. I'm holding my sell prices at 0ȿ54 for now. Overall, I'm not as worried as some by this downward trend. After all, someone is buying. I just don't think those that are selling really realize the value of what they have... yet.

I wish I could select Receive 100% of Payout in SP. 😔 After this trip, that is my intention. 😄 Until then, I'll just have to keep making content you guys like and hope that steem starts increasing in value. I'm going to start trawling /r/beermoney, too. But, I'm guessing most of those opportunities won't pay out in time. Aside from that, what other short-term money-making opportunities would you guys mind sharing?

Restating the Opportunity

For those of you who missed my first post, I'll summarize. Thanks to @roelandp, @steemitcity gets 2 free tickets to SteemFest so we can do a 20 minute presentation on what we're all about. As someone who's jumping in feet first, @menta invited me along. At the conference I want to talk to people about what I love about three SteemIt projects, Steemprentice, SteemIt.City, and SteemIt Japan.

Currently, my bank account is sitting at about $120. Before the month is out I have about $300 in bills to pay, not including food. I should be able to cover that as usual with what I'm paid from my part-time job. But, I also have to rush order a passport, which is another $200. This has to be done ASAP. Then, the flight is about $1,200. I've also looked at taking a 10 hour bus ride to Chicago to fly from there. That would just about cut my travel expenses in half. I'm not even considering paying $300 for a hotel room, so I'll be looking into couchsurfing, assuming everything else goes well—which, of course, I do!✨

Thank you all so much for your support. Let me know below what kinds of posts you want to see from me!! I'll try to get another game stream out either tonight or tomorrow night.

Special thanks goes out to @reneenouveau for the awesome verification seal! It's in my colors!!!

Edit: My apologies to those of you on mobile devices. Even after several edits, I cannot get this to format properly for your screens.

Edit: Hope you guys got some good ideas for your next posts. Thanks so much for the support in the comments below!!

Edit: Thanks soooooo much to @thecryptofiend, @raymonjohnstone, @sykochica, & @menta for resteeming this post!