Hey, this is Kortnee. You might know me from other fundraisers such as...

Wait, no, I've never done a fundraiser before. Not for anything personal. Band candy doesn't count.

To start at the beginning or at least explain the picture, in September of 2021, my husband's car caught on fire. He'd recently had it serviced and the check engine light came on. On his way to the mechanic, he noticed smoke coming out from under the hood. He pulled over, turned the engine off, got out of the and started to call for a tow. Before the tow company answered, the engine caught on fire and turned into what you see in the picture. It was a miracle that the only thing damaged was the car.

We had full coverage insurance. The insurance has decided the conflagration was caused by a mechanical failure and won't pay for it. We've been ghosted by a couple attorneys and I'm looking for new ones.

I've never had an insurance company refuse to pay for a car that has full coverage insurance and my husband has to have a car for work. We were doing okay and he bought a new car so he could continue to work, expecting that the payout from the insurance would be enough to cover part of the new car, which it should have. Even without the insurance, things were tight but okay.

Until some of my books were caught in problems with Amazon's algorithm, leading to several weeks worth of bad sales. Our car insurance rates tripled. Our health insurance tripled. What had been a pinch became a stranglehold. We've eaten through all of our savings and taken on odd jobs to cover as much of the increase as we can but it's not quite enough.

I am currently sitting at my parents house waiting for hospice to deliver a hospital bed so my dad can die at home surrounded by his family. My ability to be financially productive has been impacted badly by the last few weeks and it will likely be a problem for the next few. The amount of the fundraiser is enough to pay off the car that caught on fire and pay down the principle on the new car so the payments aren't quite so overwhelming. Anything above that will be used to help my mom with the memorial service and her day to day bills over the next few months.