thoughts on gofundme...

 As I have mentioned in recent posts, my mother and I were in serious financial trouble. With the retirement liquidated for the house, we were no longer benefiting from a monthly allowance that was critical to our expenses. At some point it was apparent to me that we were in a desperate position and I tallied several sets of figure based on the last few months and concluded that we only had about five to seven months of money remaining in our bank account. This was scary- really, really scary. if we couldn't afford to stay in our room anymore what were we going to do? My mother's SSDI monthly income was not enough to cover all our expenses. In fact, it only covered the cost of the room and nothing else, which meant pulling from the liquidated retirement to afford basic necessities like groceries, prescriptions, laundry, etc. We were (and still are) putting off other necessities like doctor visits, dental visits, ophthalmologist visits, hernia surgery, and more. 

Some people had recommended using a service like GoFundMe to plea for money, which made me feel uncomfortable. Unfortunately, push came to shove and I felt I had to ignore my discomfort and create an account there. I saw some success stories, so I developed some hope that maybe this resource could save us. IT DIDN'T. For months I did as recommended and posted to social media. The only thing I couldn't do was for my own personal team because I didn't know enough people to help me out with spreading the word even further. To date, I have had only one donation of $50. After I had been through all this, a friend of mine said these things rarely work even if you have a lot of connections and international awareness. I felt bad- discouraged because a stranger in my city made more that they needed and I didn't make enough; not even for one month's needs, annoyed that among the people I know and are acquainted with that only one person who could barely afford to help was so generous as to give me that donation, and I lost hope and fell deeper into despair, wondering what was to become of me and my mother.