What do you do when you need financial help?

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Hi,

I find myself in a precarious situation and it made me wonder, what would you do?

Let me explain a bit...

I am physically disabled along with being autistic. The combination keeps me from being able to work most real jobs for one reason or another.

I ended up on Social Security Disability about 15 years ago. Over time, I've slowly had to sell off most of the things I own that were valuable in any way. I have a couple items that I keep for collateral for pawn loans when there is an emergency (unexpected car repair kinda stuff) but everything liquid has been sold off at this point. I'm down to the basics at this point, 15 years of selling things off slowly added up. lol

Long story, but I find myself in a situation where I need to come up with a several thousand dollars ($3k min, 7k would be ideal), it's important and I'm sort of scrambling to look for options. It's significantly outside the scope of what I could pawn stuff for.

Being physically disabled eliminates most options for raising extra money (can't do much in the way of "side jobs"), and being autistic has left me in a situation where I basically have no friends I could ask for anything, and aside from my parents, who don't have the ability to help more than they do, I don't have a relationship with any other family members. I basically just live in my office, I have no social network online or in the real world to ask for help.

I would imagine there are a number of people here who have similar problems, I'm curious what you do when you find yourself in a situation where you need to come up with more money than you have a normal ability to raise.

I'm guessing I'm not the only one here who don't have real relationships with people, and even if you are physically able to work that doesnt mean you could raise several thousand extra dollars easily, so I'm curious what you all would do?

I had someone suggest starting a gofundme page or something, but I don't really see how strangers would be interested in giving anything. Crowdfunding seems to be great if you have 500 people on your Facebook friends list that might be willing to donate, at least to get the ball rolling, and spread the link around a bit...

I'm not really comfortable asking for handouts, and it seems unlikely random strangers would give anything anyway, not even sure how they would see it unless it popped up on their social media like how most other crowdfunding campaigns happen...

Lots of people out there with problems, ya know? Unless it's a family member/friend/maybe friend of a friend kind of a thing I don't think most people go on crowdfunding sites to look for completely random people to give money to... and frankly there a probably much better "stories" that would get their attention if they did go straight to a website looking for someone... Anyway...

Without people who know you at least getting the ball rolling in a crowdfunding thing like that, it seems pretty much like an embarrassing waste of time. So what other options might be out there?

Taking out a real loan/using credit is not an option, I have thousands of dollars worth of unpaid medical bills that have destroyed any semblance of good credit.

Anyway, if any of you have any ideas/thoughts I'd love to hear them!

Thanks!

There are charitable organizations that will help with legitimate expenses and loans for necessary stuff, like car and home repairs, rent assistance, medical bills etc. You should look into this. Try the phone book, the internet, and your local welfare office to find such charitable organizations. If you are elderly, there are some organizations that help the elderly with such things.

Are you getting all the government assistance you are qualified for? I have been disabled due to several health issues for a number of years now. I get govt assistance in the form of rent assistance, money from the HEAP program, which pays my home gas heat bills, Medicaid, food stamps, and monthly cash assistance to cover my other bills, and non food expenses.

Check out all of your options.

I'm sorry for your predicament.

In addition to what questor suggested, have you tried crowd sourcing sites like gofundme?

If it was me, I’d have to get a second job.

Though don’t get a loan. It still has to be paid back.

How long do you need to get the money? I may have some tips, I’ll dig around.