Support a Caregiver's Fresh Start after Loss of Parents

I have been caregiving for both parents (picture is on my dad's last birthday) off and on for 17 years (from 2007-2012 and 2020-2024) through what should have been the most productive career years of my life. I graduated from college late in life in 2007 and planned to go on to finish my Master's, but my father nearly died that spring I finished my bachelor's, so I came home to help my mom care for my dad. He lived another four years, and I spent my time helping my mom care for my dad through his last illnesses (kidney failure and COPD), then helping my mom through my dad's passing and all involved with that, helping her through financial difficulties we both shared due to the way things panned out (Great Recession, etc.). Thank God for my dad's best friend - "Uncle George" to me (also in the picture with his wife who died 2019). When the pandemic hit, my mom's health started failing, and I spent more and more time caring for her. Then my mom broke her hip in December 2023, and the caregiving has been intense ever since. I have spent a lot of my own money helping my mom over the last four years particularly. My parents lived in a house owned at the time by my dad's best friend, and my dad managed the property and hazelnut orchard for his friend till my dad's final illness that started in 2007. My dad died in 2011, and my dad's best friend died in 2022, and his children sold the property we lived in 2023. He provided a way for my mom and me to stay living here despite that sale but with the clause that when my mom died, I would have only 90 days to move out (my parents lived here from 1990 on).

My mom passed this month, and now I am faced with not enough money to move out and minimal furniture, and I am unemployed again since the end of last December. I come from a lower middle-class background from working-class parents, so there isn't much in life insurance - not enough to move or afford anything (when I say small, I mean small - less than $5000). At 56 and female, it is hard to find new work (I have been looking for remote work particularly since that is what I have been doing till last December while I cared for my mom since 2020). And to get enough money in less than 90 days for moving, first and last month's rent, and after spending what savings and money I had helping my mom and caring for her - especially over the last year (as well as my debts from school I still pay, etc.), I now need help. In creating a budget and researching how much I would need to move out, I was SHOCKED at rents around where I live as well as costs just to get into a storage unit, and I have been here with my mom for 17 years now. I have sacrificed the most important and likely best time for me to make money for retirement or make money at all in caring for my mom and dad. (I sold a lot of my furniture in going back to school late in life). So, I am asking for just enough for the move, rent for two months, and the general other costs of moving in and whatever furniture I might need. I have also inherited my mom's dog Sofie - who is an angel - and I want to give her a decent rest of her days and not have to give her up in her senior years. Caring for her comes with costs. I have tried to be conservative but also ask for enough just to get me through till I can get back on my feet again and find work. It is even harder to find work homeless which I am trying to avoid.

Thank you for whatever you can afford to give. Every little bit will help.

Money will go to:

Storage Unit Costs / month till I find a place (~200/month)

Boxes/Packing Materials

Gas

Moving Van Rental

Miles Moving Van

first month rent (rents in my area for a one bedroom run $1500-1700/month starting)

last month rent

Pet fee

Pet Deposit

Security Fee

Cleaning Fee (these are all the fees that apartments say you have to have)

Holding Deposit

Water/Sewer/Garbage couple of months just to get established

Food for Sofie and her medicine for a couple months

Minimal furniture so I am not sitting only on the floor