These are the minimum expenses for the Network to continue to function as it is now. All amounts are per year. Under each table, there are further explanations.
All expenses not denominated in RON or USD are converted into USD at the average exchange rate for the first 10 days of 2020 plus the conversion fees applicable plus 2% to account for the projected inflation rate for the USD in the year 2020.
Expenses in RON (Romanian Lei): 13,170
| Nr. crt. | Name | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grand TOTAL | 13,170 | |
| 1 | Podcast de Week-end production | 3000 |
| 2 | Supplies (batteries, coffee, memory cards, tripods, bags, lens-cleaning etc.) | 2500 |
| 3 | Transport | 2700 |
| 4 | Electricity | 1000 |
| 5 | Conversion fees | 150 |
| 6 | Information | 2100 |
| 7 | Telecom services | 420 |
| 8 | Other utilities | 300 |
| 9 | Others | 1000 |
Details:
- The podcast is produced on average 3 times a month and it costs roughly 250 RON a month to produce it. The bulk of the costs go to transporting one of the hosts to the others’ place, batteries (36 RON/episode), coffee and liquids to go for the 3+ hours per episode as well as food. Producing an episode takes as much as 10 hours (sometimes even more)
- While more resilient memory cards have hit the market, the fact remains that when you videotape at least 30 hours of raw footage in a calm month, with three cameras, they need replacement pretty fast. About 150 RON per quarter goes just on this. On top of those, there’s also batteries for the audio recorders (non-podcast related), strong bags to carry the equipment in, replacing broken tripods(200 RON/piece), replacing broken lavalier microphones, buying new hard drives (once per year, 600 RON/piece), etc.
- Every interview we make incurs us paying for transport (usually transporting one of us to the guest). On top of that, finding certain piece of information used in regular videos (but also other activities) requires one of us to go places
- Self-explanatory
- Money costs money
- Valuable information is not free. Just like we occasionally charge for certain piece of information, we, in our turn, pay for some information as well. We maintain active subscriptions to certain journals and publications.
- While telecom is very cheap in Romania, it is not free. About 35 RON/month go on maintaining a cloud service on which we host both public and non-public information, as well as on phonecalls related to the operation
- Self explanatory
- “Others” means things that don’t fit necessarily in a category, such as attending a meeting with other political operatives or sources, occasional health expenses and unexpected and unforeseeable expenses.
Expenses in USD: 820
| Nr. crt. | Name | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grand TOTAL | 820 | |
| 1 | Server | 70 |
| 2 | Domain | 35 |
| 3 | Bitchute | 135 |
| 4 | Payment processors' fees | 60 |
| 5 | Information | 150 |
| 6 | Transport | 220 |
| 7 | Others | 150 |
Details:
- Due to the continuous change in the tax rates applied to IT services in Hungary (where the server is located), the rate varies between $5.60 and $6.10 a month. $70/year is an approximation
- Self-explanatory
- We do maintain a Silver Membership on Bitchute in order to have backup there for both the English and the Romanian-language channel. Although the cost of Silver Membership is $10/month, it is only payable in cryptocurrencies so in reality it is closer to $11/month and occasionally slightly more than that. $135/yr is an approximation
- Patreon and PayPal fees are a bitch. As of January 1, 2020, PayPal increased its fees significantly(by 200% almost). As a result we changed our financial behaviour in order to avoid a full threefold increase of the fees incurred. Nevertheless, the yearly approximation has been adjusted slightly upwards compared to last year.
- Subscriptions to several papers in Europe and occasional purchases of academic journals and research papers. This also includes roughly $50/year on VPN services to work around the censorship filters in the EUSSR
- Being up to date with on the ground information in the Intermarium requires some mandatory moving around. For reference: A round-trip train ticket to Budapest is about $40. Round-trip train ticket to Kyiv is about $90.
- Explained under the first table