
Please help. Lost my job and can't pay bills
Donation protected
Ok here's my situation. Up until august of Last year I had a small home repair business in northwest arkansas and my wife was a property manager for an apartment community until January of this year.We've both worked hard to raise our kiddos and, although we've never been rich, we earned enough to pay the bills and put food on our table. We've been paying off a little 2bd house that owner was nice enough to let me owner finance and we're just 3 years shy of being real home owners for the 1st time. In August of last year the motor (218,000 miles) finally gave up on my old dodge pickup. The motor was shot and I couldn't afford a new engine so I used the bulk of our savings and had the truck towed to Tulsa for a rebuilt motor swap. $2,200 and 3 weeks later, I got my truck back with all sorts of problems. I fought with them and was eventually able to get $400 back. A week later, the night before my birthday, a bad storm came through and blew thousands of trees down in the area, including a big oak in the back yard that damaged my house enough that we had to move to an apartment for 6 months until I could repair the damages myself. So I told my most loyal customers that I would be taking 6 months off to do repairs on my own home, and stepped away from my business and my wife's salary was our only income while I wasn't able to earn money. A few months later, she was let go for not being able to fill a new property to 90% occupancy within the 1st 6 months of business. That's a lot to ask in a small community but she took on the task and wasn't able to see it through. We both understood and our anniversary was the next day so we tried to stay positive but we knew our lives were fixing to get even harder. Then the Corona virus reared its ugly head and gave us another hard blow. We had to move back into our house that is not finished, although its liveable, and all work has been halted due to no income. My wife hasn't been able to find work, and has since had a hysterectomy due to endometriosis, cancerous cell issues in the same area, and the pain associated with endometriosis. People are too afraid of this virus to call service techs into their homes for non-emergency repairs, which I understand as I am worried if I brought covid home my wife might not be healthy enough to overcome it, or my children. I'm terrified. So we did what the state requested, and we've quarantined ourselves for months now with no end in sight. For a brief moment, we had hope for a stimulus check and although the irs website says we both qualify for the relief check, we haven't received 1 still. I finally got a real person on the phone and found out that some information was entered incorrectly, probably by me because I'm not computer savvy, and we won't be able to get a relief check until we file next year. So that's out. Neither of us qualify for unemployment either. I've never asked for help before today. Never been on welfare, or food stamps or anything. We've always found a way to take care of our family by earning it the hard way. Now that I've finally gotten desperate enough to ask for help, I don't qualify for anything it seems. My wife made a nice $45,000yr salary and I made much less running a 1 man repair business in a small town. We're hardly above the poverty line but we were happy to be making it on our own. I've posted my guitars and my work trailer on Craigslist to bring some grocery money in and can't even get an offer because scammers keep flagging my posts! So if anyone wants to buy my belongings, I take very good care of my things and I'm willing to sell everything to keep my family safe and with me. We're in desperate need of some help here. Anything will help while we ride out this virus and continue searching for work. If you read this entire thing, I'm so sorry! I feel guilty even sharing this kind of failure with the world. I just want something good to finally come our way. Thank you for any help or prayers. TJ Abernathy
Organizer
Jamie Abernathy
Organizer
Bella Vista, AR