When things pile up

[NightSG]

Short version, car broke down ($500 car, at least very shot rings, possibly cracked block. Engine would be $450, so really not worth fixing while there are better cars on Craigslist.  Don't really have the $450 to spare anyway, though.) while I was in the process of retiring a couple of moderate debts.  Fortunately, one of my coworkers lives near me, so on days I can't ride my bike, I can catch a ride to work.  Unfortunately, though, not having a car makes things like laundry and grocery shopping a lot trickier; it's about a mile and a half to the laundromat, and obviously that's a problem in rainy weather.  Groceries are limited to what I can safely carry on the bicycle.  There's fast food about five minutes' walk from me, but that costs a lot more than groceries, and isn't anywhere near as healthy.
There were also some immediate costs in getting the bike back to commuting condition, and stocking up a few things when I have the opportunity.  That, and the desire to get the debts dealt with before interest and fees put me in a hole that will take a year or more to claw out of, has me looking at 10-12 weeks before I'll have the cash on hand to seriously look for another car.
A friend suggested that it might be a good idea to get things like that out in the open, rather than keeping it to myself until the situation gets to the point where I have to admit I can't fix it by myself and someone ends up taking on all the effort and expense of bailing me out of whatever mess I end up in.  (In fairness, he was mostly repeating what I told him after I fixed his car at midnight in the middle of nowhere because he didn't mention it was having problems when I could have fixed it in his driveway the Saturday before.)  To that end, I decided to try one of the crowdfunding sites, tell my story there, and share it with friends to see how much the process could be sped along with a few people kicking in $5-10.  Well, so far, there are three donations totaling $150.  Since I'm only looking for about a $1000-1500 car, ($500 will usually get one that runs, but $1000 opens up a lot of "runs great but I just don't need it anymore" deals.) that's a pretty good chunk, and roughly what I'd expect to be able to set aside per two week pay period towards a car, so they've bumped my expected purchase ahead by two weeks already.
More than that, those three aren't among the people I would have expected anything from.  I've never bailed any of them out of a bad situation, nor have we even discussed such beyond a couple of FB posts about the car breaking down.  It's good to know that I have friends like that that I didn't even know would be that quick to step up.
I can't fault the ones I would expect help from; first off they don't owe me anything (well, except for one, but that's another story) and second, I know some of them are dealing with their own problems right now.  I suspect, based on some texts, that a couple of them are planning to contribute a fair bit, but are either planning it into their budget, or just waiting to see how much help I end up needing after another pay period or two.
Overall, I guess the moral of the story is let your friends know as soon as you could use some help.  As the song says, "no one can fill those of your needs that you won't let show."

[thoughts]

Or maybe they'd rather pay you more and therefore won't give through the gofundme page that takes a percentage?

[NightSG]

On 3/23/2016 at 11:15 PM, thoughts said:

Or maybe they'd rather pay you more and therefore won't give through the gofundme page that takes a percentage?

The percentage is pretty low, but I have had a couple of people who gave $10-15 cash toward paying off some of the other debt, which adds up pretty quickly when the excess is all going straight to principal.  I'm also working a couple of other angles as far as finding a better car cheap.  A major goal here is to have something that I won't have to overhaul for at least a couple years, or a pair of reasonably reliable ~$500-750 cars so I can slowly overhaul one while using the other, then once they're both rock solid reliable, sell one at cost to someone who needs it.

[spamlds]

Talk to your bishop.  He has constraints on what he can do.  For example, he can't use Church funds to pay off consumer debt, but he can provide food and pay rent/mortgage payments so you can direct your available means to pay for car repairs, etc.  There may even be a ward member who can assist with the repairs at a reduced cost.  The Church has resources.  Bishops are to seek out those who need help.  Make the contact as soon as you can.