Help Fiery's family recover from recent hardship

Hi, I'm Bunny aka FieryAshes and I am fundraising because my little family could use some aid right now to get out of a tailspin life has put us in recently.

It has never been easy in my life to ask for help, but through loving and wonderful people I've had around me over the years I've gotten a little better at asking for it when needed. I may be stubborn sometimes and want to be more self-sufficient, but I know that can't get in the way of trying to improve my life in ways that I can't do on my own sometimes.

Recently my partner and I have had several issues come up all at once when we were already fighting to claw our way into stability after we've had a difficult time financially. We've been fully in survival mode for a while; however, it felt like we might be fairly okay until my partner finds a new job. We've both been looking for a while with no bites but we are still trying. I'm also trying to diversify my income doing what I'm already doing that is easier on my disabilities and has me the healthiest I've felt since my early 20s, so I don't want to ruin that up especially while I don't have a medical team re-established yet. Thus, I'm looking for remote work with flexible hours. Basically, hoping to find something I can hold down without health issues making me unable to fulfill my workload and thus making the work unsustainable. But I'm... I'm trying. I even have applied for some jobs that would be life-changing if they happened and I could maintain working them with the right health care. The point is that we're trying very hard to make things better in the long term for our family.

While working on trying to stabilize, we acquired transportation so that my partner could get to and from their current job (or potentially to whatever job they hopefully get to replace this one.) It gave them autonomy and made it so we could finally do our errands without help from outside parties for the most part. It was great. It was a wonderful cargo e-bike that gave them a huge sense of freedom, it had a great impact on their health. It was fantastic... until the e-bike was stolen from us at the end of January. Someone snuck onto our property, broke off the part of the house that it was chained to, and took it before we could do anything about it. The police were not helpful in this situation, we lost the thief in the minutes that passed between when they rode off and when my partner started trying to follow them to see if they found the bike ditched somewhere when they realized it had no power (we kept the batteries indoors), and it was ABOUT to be insured in February which did not help us since it was the last week of January when this happened. We did everything we could conceivably do after it had already been taken to get it back to us, to no avail.

Since the e-bike was stolen we can no longer do errands on our own, we are back to needing help from outside parties to do even the most basic of errands which also means we can't take care of things promptly unless a friend just happens to be available at that exact moment. It complicated my partner getting to work. My partner has stopped being able to commute to work which has affected our life greatly. Between this and a shoulder injury that my partner just recovered from in February, we lost a lot of income we would have otherwise had to pay the bills and buy groceries.

It's been a mess and we have been set back a few thousand dollars very rapidly when we already had no savings.

As our rental home is finally nearing having the repairs from the theft's damage finished and other things are starting to settle, it feels as though we should be okay. But we aren't. We weren't "okay" before this, we were just managing to survive while we tried to figure out how to make our tomorrow better than today. But when suddenly... and without warning... you have a massive financial hole form under you when you were already painfully aware you had no safety net, and you find yourself in a weird financial freefall. That is where our lives are currently. We had to deal with a bunch of sudden costs, we had things we had to do for our landlord that were immediate, and there was just so much out of nowhere with all of that and the sudden reduction in our income too. Budgets got tighter while required costs grew too. These types of events with our type of shoestring budget can often be the tipping point for many poor families and when that happens it usually means losing housing. We are so fortunate to have not lost our housing when things have gotten particularly hairy in recent memory. The stress is taking a toll on our health, but we are still surviving. We are still making it through, day by day, together. We still have a roof over our heads for now and a place where our children can safely be when they are with us. But that's about all we are managing right now, we are struggling with several things including our utilities and groceries... barely managing to eke out enough of a living to keep this up a little longer.

That brings me to this fundraiser, that brings me to today. In another way I have been incredibly fortunate - I have people in my life right now who want to help us. People who have been considering raising money to help us replace the e-bike, people who have been considering how they might be able to get money together to surprise me with help. Multiple disconnected groups have tried to figure out how they could help. It's been so sweet to hear about. But it also felt like I should organize something coordinated instead of having multiple "surprise" groups trying to do it for me. When I floated their ideas to my lovely Twitch community, community members said they'd support it. So. Here I am! Putting myself out there and asking for assistance in any form people feel comfortable and able to contribute to.

This is how I would be using the funds from this campaign:

The initial goal is $2,000.

If that is raised, which would already be such a huge boon for us I would be so grateful there. My community asked me to include some "stretch goals" even if it's hard for me to ask for more help than the most extenuating circumstance. Some stretch goals that I know some community members want to help me with are things like:

And more! So many ideas came up, which were all REALLY sweet of people to suggest. But I think I'd rather wait to add anything like those after the initial funds are at least getting close to being raised, I don't want anyone to feel like I'm being greedy about the love, kindness, and generosity being talked about.

Thank you for reading this far and for being supportive, in any meaning of the word, to me and my family through everything we've been going through. It often feels like it's just one thing after another, but it's always comforting knowing all the lovely people my partner and I get to have in our lives.

Much love,

Bunny