Help Val Survive 2024 Medical and Furnace and Shed Fund!

Hi, this is Val and I'm having a really hard time this year.

It feels as though 2024 has been the year of struggles and nothing has been letting up for me. It's due to this that I have decided to go this route. The beginning of 2024 started off with the loss of my father. It's hard to admit that he was basically my safety net. Any time something went wrong in my life, something difficult I couldn't normally figure out myself, he was there to lend a hand or insight. I've never had so much financially hit in a row in my lifetime and the hits just keep hitting to a point of frustration. I am on my own. I don't make enough money in my day job, and my secondary job barely keeps me from going completely under even without unplanned emergencies. While I am looking at getting another job, the wages in this town haven't increased with the cost of everything else since covid happened. Every job I've gotten in the last 10 years has legitimately paid me less than the prior job had, despite experience. I'd finally get to what my old wage was and then I need to start over. Every restart has set me back and now I don't have a safety net. I'm drowning and am asking for help. Here is a timeline of events for me to get an idea of what's been going on.

January: Father admitted to hospice.

February: Father passes.

March: Went to the ER and they did nothing (but did charge me $500).

Went to the ER a second time (a second charge of $500). They did a surgery on me at that time (Another $500) which did not resolve the problem. At least it appears that I have decent health insurance. But these bills are piling up.

High winds in the area ripped up my awning that is attached to my house. Neighbor makes a huge deal out of it and asks me to get it fixed immediately and has me go with some guy he knows. Guy charges $500 and ends up not even finishing the job and it's falling apart again (though less dangerous now, but still not fully secured). He never came back for his ladder so I guess that's mine now. Neighbor guy then says "Oh, I have other people who can do it for $300." and I was frustrated like... if I had $800 to blow on this experience in the first place I would have went with a professional and not some unreliable dude.

Follow up appointment for the whole hospital thing happened. I have a 4-5cm ovarian cyst. It needs to come out. Appointment not until May. Car battery dies so a quick emergency purchase of a battery had to happen ($200).

April: When switching over my heat to cooling, my thermostat goes out. I troubleshoot as much as I can. I end up replacing the thermostat for $135 and it didn't work. Vegas temps slowly climb.

May: Called in some air conditioning people and they tell me it's a board on the furnace and some fan part that's leaking. They "recommend" buying a whole new furnace and air conditioning unit for $22,000. That's almost as much as my current home costs. I decline. The parts they can get to fix my issue give me a quote of $4500. I also decline. They still charged me $80 for the visit.

Ordered the board thats causing an issue on eBay for $55. It does not work. Called another aircon place. They come out, assess, and quote me $910 and waive the assessment fee. Agree to that because it needs to get done, it was already 100 degrees F out. They indicate that I absolutely will need to replace the furnace soon, this is only a temporary fix to get me through the summer.

A gas furnace similar to what I currently have is probably going to be around $4000-6000.

June: Finally have the appointment with the doctor (it got pushed to June). Surgery is set for July 10th. I'm expecting this also to cost probably around the $500 or more range, but who knows at this point since robots are involved. I'm in pain daily with the occasional few days of not being in pain, but it's sporadic and I can't live with this 5cm cyst inside of me and continue to have a good quality of life. I'm not able to sleep through the night because it hurts so much that it wakes me.

On top of all this, the storage unit I have is monthly and difficult to continue paying at my current wages. The original plan was for my Dad to help get me a shed to put everything that's in the unit, but the shed never got bought. It's a step I need to do so I can start going through all that stuff from the old house (either to sell or get rid of) but that's very difficult when the hours of the place are when I work and taking the time to go through all the boxes is a hassle. A decent professionally installed shed at 10 x 10 or 10 x 12 is like $3000-4000. I need to go with someone to build it for me. I'm not willing to screw that up myself.

I also have concerns that my car will fail at any moment. I had a scare this last week with it overheating, but that was resolved with replacing the radiator cap and some coolant. While I'd like to have a car that's less than 20 years old, I do love my car and just want it to keep on living.

With all that said, I'm going to shoot for an impossible goal of $15,000 to aim for. That'd give me a buffer if my car actually did die and I can start paying those back who've floated me through some of this like with the air conditioning / furnace situation / medical bills.

If every single person who shows up as a friend of mine on Facebook gave me $20, I'd easily meet that goal. If even a little more is given, it'll help out so much. I've sat on the concept of making one of these for a long while. I'm just now at a point of desperation that I need it to survive the rest of the year. Priorities are medical care and furnace, then fixing the awning. Less priority is the shed but it'd help out a lot since I wouldn't be throwing money at a storage unit anymore.

Thank you for reading this long and thank you for your consideration.