I am Chris Irregardless, and I am a professional caregiver and electronic musician in Florida. My husband is disabled and cannot work. My day job requires me to use a 2004 Ford Sport Trac to drive my disabled clients around. I'd been having problems with the transmission since I'd bought it about a year ago, and the week before last it finally fell apart. I stopped to get a soda on the way home from work, and when I pulled out of the driveway, I couldn't drive forwards, only backward. I used some of the money I'd saved up for the rent to get it towed home and buy a service manual so that my husband could possibly fix it. A week later (he had to work on it slowly because of his medical problems), we had to admit defeat and get it to a mechanic to get it fixed. It turned out that the transmission had to be rebuilt, and it will cost us around $4500. I'm currently at 25-30 hours a week at Florida's Medicaid provider minimum wage because of a lack of work available, and my credit score is low, partially because of the loans I had to take out for the other repairs that the transmission has caused in the past.

I will also need some help paying my rent ($700, which is partially covered by my husband's $285 Social Security) and some other bills because of the two weeks that I have and will be out of work.