Hey friends, I’m Panda and I’m in a very scary place right now. I’m behind on all my bills and don’t see anything ahead but being on the street if I don’t put my pride away and ask for help

I don’t like asking for money. It feels like cyber-panhandling, and it honestly fills me with more shame than you can probably imagine. But, here I am

So, the sob story: My wife and I have been struggling to keep up with bills all year, and inflation has made it so much worse lately. Let me lay out what’s hanging over our heads right now

Three months ago my wife had to change jobs, and the process lost about $1100 in pay that month. This hit us hard with the current hyperinflation we’re experiencing, and we haven’t been able to recover. In the meantime, that $1100 that would have gone to bills has grown to around $6000 in back payments and late fees

Heres the breakdown:

About three years ago my wife’s car was impounded for back registration, since we were too broke to pay it then too. We’ve been working to pay it down, but haven’t been able to pay for a few months and we now owe $3500 for that. It’s looking like it’ll probably end up in a default judgement pretty soon, because it’s now due in full

Her current car is a month behind on registration ($250)

My car is almost 6 months behind on registration, and that’s well within the “we’ll impound you if we find you” zone ($220)

My car also has a shredded convertible top, and a window that’s stuck half open, so winter should be wet and miserable for me, assuming my car isn’t impounded, but I’m not counting that stuff here. I just don’t want to be living in that leaky car

Then there’s the utilities… We’re about three months behind on everything and our phones were just cut off today, which made setting this all up nearly impossible, if not for a good friend helping with the text verification

We owe nearly $1200 in electricity bills, another $600 in gas bills, our internet is about to be cut off, and we’re struggling to even afford food right now

The other miscellaneous bills, like credit cards, etc. add up to around another $1000. That’s back payments and not total debt. That’s much higher

To top it all off, our bank account is currently around $60 overdrawn from insurance auto-pay, and almost 100% of both our next paychecks will be going to rent. This means no electricity, no gas, no groceries

I don’t know how to express my desperation right now, but I’m at work, crying so hard I can’t see what I’m typing half the time

Anything helps, honestly… even sharing this around