Hi, I’m Amanda. I’m a 38 year old mother of 1 teenage boy from Wisconsin. I’ve been taking care of my son by myself since he was a baby.

This year has been a difficult one for my little family. I got very ill with a chronic nerve condition earlier this year, and while I had FMLA that is not paid. There have been times I had to choose between going to work and feeding my child, which just made everything all the worse. With this struggle with money, we lost our home. In August we had to leave fairly quickly. What we could salvage, we put into storage.

Shortly after we lost our home, I lost my job when FMLA ran out. I found a part-time seasonal job from September through November. While I have a job, it doesn’t start until the beginning of the year. In October we had our phones disconnected, because I had to choose between phones and gas for my vehicle to get to work, where I was only getting 4-12 hours a week, though some weeks I didn’t get any hours at all. I’ve been looking for something seasonal or temporary until my new job starts but have not gotten any call backs and the one phone interview I had did not call at the scheduled time, nor respond when I reached out.

I had been working with the owner of my storage unit and thought I’d have until I got my first paycheck at my new job. Today I got an email that it needs to be paid in full, $180 that I just don’t have. And my phone company is saying that if I do not pay the $684.96 bill by December 28th they will permanently cancel our plan.

I am already unsure how I will handle Christmas for my son, who has lost so much this year. Now I’m struggling to figure out how we will save the last of our belongings. It breaks my heart that he’s had to suffer so much this year.

The most important bills

1: $180 for storage unit bill- THE MOST IMPORTANT

2: $684.96 to get our phones back on and functional. Not having a phone is really hard for a teenager and it would be nice to have a phone while I drive to my new job in the winter incase something happens.

What might be nice for Christmas

1: A gaming chair for my son to put up in his grandparents house, he’s been asking for about 6 years now.

2: $60 for a handle for his camera as his biggest passion is art.

if anyone could help, I’d be so appreciative. I don’t know what to do at this point, since I really thought I would have until my first paycheck to get things figured out.