Hi, my name is Gus.

This is a hard thing for me to do. I hate asking for help, but a few friends now have suggested that I should do this, so here I am.

This last year has been difficult. I was let go from my job due to budget cuts in April 2023. It was a great job, but they couldn't keep me. I got no notice. One day, I was working as I normally do, and I got a message to hold off on what I was working on. Within an hour, I had a zoom call, and they let me know I was done. They had to cut some people, and I was one of the people they had to cut in order for them to keep functioning.

During the time I worked for them, I had saved some money, but in supporting my family, I went through all of it. I got unemployment, which helped get us through, but that ended, too. By the end of the year, I finally received an inheritance check from my mom's passing 13 years ago, but it wasn't a whole lot of money, and that got spent, too.

Little gigs here and there, a successful Kickstarter (but that ended up paying mostly for everything it took to get that made), credit cards for bills and groceries got us through some more time, but all that has just about been used up. I've not been able to get anything significant enough to catch up and keep up with all the expenses I have.

I have a family, with myself included, of five people. Bills, groceries, maintenance expenses, it's just too much for me to handle on my own at the moment. I've been looking for work, but nothing significant has turned up, and I need help.

I've made some money from a few gigs, I've borrowed some money, I've applied to a bunch of jobs, I've put up artwork for sale and tried to work for it, offered up commissions, but at this point I'm just about out of money and nothing has really manifested. I tried applying for a personal loan, but was not successful. I've literally tried to do everything I can to not have to ask for money, but here I am.

I'm down to less than $300 in the bank and bills are coming up again. I'm also $10,000+ in credit card debt, and I'm pretty much only paying off the interest at this point and not making a dent in the actual debt.

I'm not asking for $10K. I believe that if I can just raise half of that, I can pay off my current bills and get my credit card debt down to at least a point where I'm paying down the debt and less of the interest. I may have some work coming up, but it's not solid yet, and I can't hang on, anymore. I can wait, but my bills can't. Honestly, even with the job, it’s not enough at this point to get rid of the debt anytime soon.

I hate doing this, but I'm at a point where I don't what else to do. I live on a mountain and we have one car, which is used to take the kids to school five days a week, leaving me limited to what I can do during work hours. There's some other personal stuff I'm going through which has put extra some extra financial strain on me, but I'm just not ready to talk about it just yet.

I'm embarrassed, I'm ashamed, and I hate, like really hate asking anyone for help, but I don't know what else to do. I'm asking for help as friends of mine have suggested. I'm waiting on possible work and I'm still looking, but until something comes through, I'm stumped. This is humbling for me, but I'm lost on another solution that will help in the near future.

I'm sorry for having to ask for help. I know many of you will tell me not to be sorry for asking for help, but I can’t help that.

Thank you for listening.