This is my third post to gather funds to buy a Steem Monsters starter pack before September. If you don't know what Steem Monsters is, you can read an introduction on my post where I explain about it and talk about how I got my first card. For the full details on how I intend to go about this #upfundme campaign, please read the first post if you haven't yet.

Image source: screenshot from Steemmonsters.com showing the page to purchase the starter pack

The market gave me a scare last week, with STEEM (the only currency we've been paid out in lately) plummeting to the 0.8 USD range and also falling relative to SBD. It's great to those wanting to buy STEEM, but horrible to those wanting to buy something with STEEM or trade it for SBD (it's what I've been doing with the earnings of these upfundme posts, in hope that SBD will hang on closer to 1 USD the way it was intended to, while whatever happens to STEEM). It was a crazy week, and I almost panicked seeing the already small pending earnings of the previous upfundme post getting smaller and smaller... but somehow, they recovered by the weekend! What a roller coaster...

Speaking of the previous upfundme post, it paid out, and I received $0.223 STEEM. I traded the STEEM on the internal market for $0.202 SBD, then transferred it to my savings account to keep it separate from my normal SBD. I had tried to trade for a bit more, but the STEEM price began dropping again and the order wasn't filled. Since I couldn't wait (I had meant to publish this post yesterday), I had to cancel the order and trade at a lower price, which is a shame, but such is life in the crypto world, I guess :P .

The results so far:

• Target: $5 USD ($5.188 SBD according to the current price on the Steemmonsters.com site, with SBD still under a Dollar. I hope SBD will be worth a bit more by the time I have to buy the starter pack...).
• The earnings from Post 001: $0.172 SBD.
• The earnings from Post 002: $0.202 SBD.
• Amount gathered so far: $0.374 SBD
• Amount still required: $4.814 SBD

I had been hoping to reach the goal, or at least around half of the goal so that the cost would be more manageable for me to cover with my own STEEM/SBD. Considering the progress so far, though, it's all too clear that the goal won't be reached (probably not even 1 SBD), unless a miracle happens and some bigger upvotes come in (which I really doubt :P ). I had considered publishing one more post this week to try to gather a little more in a last-ditch effort, but decided against it (I really don't like clogging my followers' feeds with this kind of posts, even though I always make sure to add different content so that it isn't spammy). This post will be my last shot at this campaign, because its payout will be already in the last week of August. I'd have kept going at my own pace if I didn't have a deadline, but once the game goes out of alpha in September, the starter pack's price will probably increase, and it'll be even harder to get! This is the reason why I need to get the starter pack before September. Also I need 3 days to withdraw the saved-up earnings from the savings account.

That being said, I'll take whatever I can get. Whatever amount I end up earning from these upfundme posts will already help make the cost a bit more manageable. Since we aren't being paid in SBD anymore, I'll hold onto my SBD until the end of August. If I take all my SBD, add the upfundme earnings and trade some of my STEEM, I think I can buy the starter and still have a bit left to help grow my Steemit account... well, at least it's possible :P .

Once this post pays out and I get the starter pack, I'll make a post following-up on this upfundme campaign and talking about the starter pack itself. So, until then!

Thank you to everyone who has upvoted me so far, and to anyone who upvotes this post!