Hi everyone. I recently have been struggling to make ends meet. Until today, the income I made from work was able to (after income tax) cover just my rent/utils, and EITHER food OR medical. I have many chronic disabilities including (but not limited to) type 2 diabetes, chronic lower back pain, and chronic trouble walking due to life-long issues with my ankles. I am also autistic.

I was already planning to launch this GoFundMe on this date for a few weeks now, but unfortunately, I ALSO found out today that I am being laid off from my job. So now I will not have any income.

To make matters worse, I currently live in Manhattan NYC (because I grew up in the city) and do not have a car or drivers license. So being with no car and being disabled it would be very difficult for me to relocate somewhere cheaper. I can't even do so right now anyway since I am locked into a lease until December. My rent + utilities (electricity, internet, phone) cost is approximately $2100/mo, the rent being $1845/mo. (And this is considered "low" for the area... My apartment is only 400 sq ft too.) Before getting laid off, I already spent my entire paycheck each month just to scrape by. Now I don't have any income.

Lately I have been skipping meals and neglecting my physical health because I just couldn't afford to do both. Health insurance in the US is generally all around pretty bad as you probably know, and the cost of food is also rising drastically.

I am asking for help because I don't think I even have much of a choice. I know that even if I can get unemployment benefits, it will not be sufficient to cover the local cost of living while I still need to pay for the rest of my lease, at the very least. I am signed through December 31st.

Please know that I am going to actively seek job opportunities (and if you have any please let me know, I do software engineering and related jobs) but no matter what, job opportunities are not immediate. So I WILL need some help to just get by.

The initial goal is set at $2500, which, after considering approximately 30% taken in taxes and fees, would cover an approximately $1750 dental bill that I already owe from work done in January. I have a lot of other medical and emergency expenses as well. I was told a week or so ago that I would also need extensive dental treatments, which I know from experience are extremely expensive, even with insurance. (I cannot go to another country for cheaper treatment as I do not have a passport.) I do intend to raise the goal for some other needs, should this one be met, because I have a lot of financial difficulties at the moment.

If you would like more information about my situation or myself, please see this document I wrote up . It is quite long (over 6000 words, a ~30-40 minute read), so I wanted to leave it as available, while making this description a bit more condensed.

Thank you so so so much if you're able to help me out. And if you can't, I'd really appreciate if you can signal boost this.

UPDATE: Friday, July 7, 2023, 6:25 PM EDT

The first goal has been reached thank you so much. I am updating the goal at the moment to $3930 which will cover the cost of the driving lessons and road test to hopefully get my license. Normally I would have simply postponed this but due to the unfortunate timing, I had already booked the lesson yesterday, so the charge will be coming in, and they're already arranging my test date. The cost of the lessons and road test combined is $960, plus I will need to take an Uber to the driving school and back home from there on the day of the road test (typically $15-30 for that distance around here, depending on traffic).

Here is my spreadsheet (screenshot) for my financial breakdown. I will try and share the full sheet later but it's a bit disorganized at the moment outside of that screenshot portion.