It’s Not All Free

I hear a lot of people talking about free products and how they want to be a blogger and “get free stuff” but honestly being a review blogger has downfalls as with any “job”. One who isn’t into the blogging scene or the review blogging scene may not realize how many endless hours we put into our blogs, and the payback is not anywhere near the hours spent organizing our blog and writing content. When you put reviews of products into the whole blogging “job” then your hours become even longer and time consumed even more.

There are many reasons I enjoy reviewing products, it gives me a chance to test out products I may not normally have been able to purchase, it allows me to work with brands & companies I would normally never know on a personal level, and the most important reason is to see my kids faces light up when we have a new package on our door step that they get to open. As with most of my product reviews, they are geared more towards family and children, although I do take on adult reviews occasionally, the majority of products I receive are for my children.

This product review stuff is not “all free”, for starters I pay taxes on every single product I receive. I have an Excel spreadsheet full of dates, contacts and products received in addition to their fair market value. I turn in that spreadsheet to my accountant at end of year and pay taxes on the fair market value of all items I receive through my blogs.  This means I may not be paying full price for the items I receive but I am essentially paying taxes on those items based on total fair market value at end of year.

I have thought about putting reviews on the back burner but they are so fun to take part in. Sometimes companies have a blog tour or a huge list of bloggers they combine together to get a huge response on the testing of their products and those type of situations are seriously fun for me. For example, I recently took part in a blog tour with Mom Central where I was able to test out two diaper pails. I was among many other bloggers who tried these products and was not only able to share my opinion but was able to read what other parents were saying. This was a fun blog tour for me!

The endless hours and picture taking and making sure I insert the FTC Disclosure at the bottom of all my reviews to let the consumers know I am receiving most if not all products referenced on this site for free can certainly take a lot of working hours. On top of being a blogger I am a virtual assistant, therefore you can say I have a lot of late night hours working after my kids go to sleep but the end result of interacting with brands, watching my kids faces light up and being able to form a connection with brands makes it all worth while.

So remember when you read other peoples blogs and feel envy, jealousy or mean thoughts about them “getting products for free” remind yourself about this article and how a  majority of us don’t accept products we feel would have no value to us, and law requires us to pay taxes on these items, therefore we are paying to get free products at the end of every tax season!