UPDATE: Alas, I’m in a worse financial crisis this summer (no salary) than I was last summer (reduced salary). My salary doesn’t start up again until September; don’t see how to pay my rent and other bills between now and then. Never got out from under my mother’s final, expensive illness, plus I’ve been facing prohibitively high co-pays for my own medical issues: still drowning in high-interest loans (with payments extracted automatically from my account), and whenever I start to get caught up, summer comes and kicks my butt again. There were a couple of paying gigs that I thought I had a good chance of getting this summer, but they fell through. Some other things I’m working on now will bring me some money, but not for several months. I got through June by getting a loan using my car as collateral, so now I’m at risk of losing my car too.
So I have enough money for rent for July (thanks to a couple of generous friends), but not quite enough to cover utilities, groceries, storerooms, or loan payments for July. For August I don’t have enough to cover even rent, let alone any of the above. Staring at homelessness and losing all my belongings (and my mother’s books and papers). So any help to get me through the summer would be enormously appreciated.
August rent: 1225.00
July utilities: 600.00
August utilities: 700.00
July storeroom fees: 500.00
August storeroom fees: 500.00
July loan payments: 2000.00
August loan payments: 2200.00
July groceries: 90.00
August groceries: 100.00 (I’m living mostly on ramen noodles over the summer; they’re cheap!)
That’s 8115.00. Last summer I set a goal of 5000 and received 4621.00 (thank you all!). I’ve upped the goal to $12,736 to include the 4621.00 raised last summer and the 8115.00 I’m hoping for this summer – though of course anything beyond that, to help me pay off my loans to get out of this situation permanently, would be fantastic. (Most of my loans are not eligible for debt consolidation programs.)
I’m obviously using GoFundMe; but for those that prefer these, my Venmo is Roderick-Long-8, my CashApp is $ RoderickLong5, and my PayPal is longrob at auburn dot edu.
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So many people have been so generous to me in the past, and I hate asking for help again. But this hit me out of the blue today.
The tiny apartment I’ve been living in for the past 25 years I’ve also been using as storage (in addition to a couple of storerooms I’m renting elsewhere), so I live surrounded by towering piles of boxes. Well, today my landlord has finally lost patience and demands that I move most of the stuff out to a storeroom or be evicted.
Of course this would have to come while I’m on drastically reduced salary (for the summer) and struggling to meet even my regular expenses. Whenever I think I’m getting caught up financially, some new thing has to hit me to set me back.
Another storeroom of the requisite size will cost me in the vicinity of $350 per month; that’s $1050 for the summer. Plus I’ll need to rent a cargo van for a week or so, an additional $700.
So I’d appreciate any help! My minimum funding goal would be $1750 for storeroom fees over the summer plus the cargo van. But that extra $350 per month is going to be tough during the regular year too, so I’ve set the full GoFundMe goal at an aspirational $5000. Of course anything additional would also be welcome.
Alternatively, for those that prefer these, my Venmo is Roderick-Long-8, my CashApp is $ RoderickLong5, and my PayPal is longrob at auburn dot edu.