Help a Family in Need Afford Bills & Food After Job loss

Hey I'm Jimmy. It has taken a lot of swallowed pride to post this but my family and I really need help.

For the last six years, I've been a community manager in the games industry. I lost my job at the start of August, and we are entering dire straits. We've cut back on everything non-essential, have gotten support from family where we can, we've been attending the local food bank and community food project, but the situation as we head into October is pretty bleak from a financial point of view.

As I won't be bringing in any salary for September, we proactively applied for Universal Credit. However, as my (already short) final wage from last month falls within the same payment window as this UC payment, we'll only be receiving £900. Our rent is £700. So, that's £200 to survive on across the whole of October, which has to cover priority bills and food for a family of four.

We have been a single-income household since we had children, living month to month. The cost of childcare and an ongoing health issue have prevented my wife from being able to return to work. As a result, we have no savings to speak of. We've sold all of our excess belongings that we could to survive September. I have no idea how we're going to get through October.

I've had some really good interviews recently, including a final interview at somewhere really exciting...but even if I'm successful, I won't be pulling a normal salary for over a month. I don't know how we survive until then.

So, I turn to the Internet and the generosity of online friends and strangers. If you're in a position to, please help in any way you can. You'll literally be saving our ass.

I've worked every day of my life since doing paper rounds at 15 years old. I've been lucky to have always had something else lined up...but the games industry is in a rough old place and there's a lot of us out of work right now for very few roles. Over the last 18 months, I've been through two rounds of redundancy and a contract ending earlier than expected. Games just isn't that secure right now. I know peers who are 6-12 months into their job hunt.

I've been looking outside of games, as much as I really don't want to, but getting that next job takes time and marketing outside of video games is just as competitive a job market right now. I've also considered Evri or Amazon delivery roles just to tide us over, but we're currently also car-less, due to brake failure (being investigated). The good luck keeps on coming...

Any help you can provide us (even just a share or kind word) would be very much appreciated

Love you, friends (and sorry to even have to ask)!

Jimmy