Hello! My name is Michael Meeks aka Karl/Mikito. I'm making this gofundme in attempt to recover and build back funds from a chain of emergency spending we've had to endure. I'd like to preface that I am self-employed as landscaper with three dependents. We as a family have had series of unfortunate events starting since November of 2020 when I had gotten into a vehicular accident which totaled my work truck. I was found 0% liable and the insurance gave me a settlement so that I could get work truck to replace my totaled one. I have never been in that type of situation and thought the settlement I was getting was reasonable and that I could get a truck of equal or similar value to the one that I had lost. Unfortunately, due to covid, vehicle prices had sky rocketed and the scarcity of the type of vehicle I was looking for made it difficult to get a truck of similar worth to the one I lost; so, I settled on an older pickup truck that didnt have a lot of miles but needed some work, but with the price of the truck and the amount i got from the settlement I could get it repaired with the remainder of the money I had. I put my new truck in the shop in December of 2020 and got it back in June 2021. I hadn't anticipated such a long period of time to pass before I would have a working vehicle again, so in that time frame I had been renting out trucks to be able to work - this proved to be a huge mistake and ended costing thousands. During this time period, we had to put down a family pet and were dealing with supply chain issues which effected the business. Once I had gotten my truck back from the shop we ended up in a situation where my fiance who was on birth control had gotten an atopic pregnancy. The state we live in wouldn't give us insurance/help with the ordeal so we ended up paying out of pocket for it all, which cost us almost a couple thousand. We had gotten help from family to cover some of it plus some of the rental costs I had accumulated during that 6 month time frame. My fiance then found out she had an aggressive form of genetic HPV and the blood work indicated that she may have pre-cervical cancer which led to a chain of visits to the doctor which costed even more money. Good news, she does not have cancer or pre cancer! That being said, the state insurance wouldn't offer backpay and, yet again, we ended up paying out of pocket for all the doctor visits, blood work and biopsies. We wouldn't be able to get through this whole string of events if it weren't for family intervention and me being able to do some good paying projects; however, with supply chain issues my business couldn't do most the projects I had landed due to production of certain materials not being produced until Feb-April of 2022. A couple months after I got my truck back, so August of 2021, I ended up having to take my truck back due to idle issues, and brake line leaks along with a massive vacuum leak. I ended up having to do what I did earlier in the year and rent out another truck. During this time, due to in ability to start certain projects, we ended up in the red again and I was desperate to have funds to cover our living expenses so I took out a loan. I couldn't get one through the banks as my credit wasn't the greatest due to some poor decision making when I was 19, I'm currently 27. I ended up settling for a $800 loan from a predatory loaner... this ended up costing much more than I was let on when getting the loan - it was all on phone and I know now that what I did was stupid. Anyway, I ended getting a job while also doing my own business on the side to make ends meet. Things were starting to look better, but we ended up having the family car in the shop too so things just got out of hand. I also got laid off as the person who hired me decided they were wanting to go another direction and didn't need me anymore which led me back just being self-employed. This is my current situation. With all the expenses and issues we have been having; I'm concerned I can't keep up pace and pay things like rent, utilites, groceries, loan payments or even affording a Christmas for my 2 year old son and 1 year old daughter. There is no obligation to help us, but I am making this gofundme in a desperate attempt to recover some of the funds lost so that we can be way less anxious about our living situation and the holidays... Thank you for your time if you read this and thank you for sharing this or helping us if you do. Even if you don't do any of those things, we are grateful that people would listen to our story of unfortunate events. Bless you yall!