Dang, it really sounds rough for you. Do you have a life insurance policy? Could you borrow against that? Or get the cash value from? We have old policies we got twenty years ago we were able to borrow on to get another car this year when a nice drunk driver totalled our car.
I love Dave Ramsey, but we are not doing the course. I started to do the budget, and it made me scared, so I am just plodding along, paying down what debt I can, and letting the rest go hang for now. Can whatever Gabe makes pay something? Or part of what is owed now? Did you talk to the utilities about giving you extra time? I have had them give me nearly two weeks before. Hopefully you can get on when the new Walgreens opens. Love to shop there for bargains. Got a few 12 packs of batteries there the other day for only 1.29. Clearance is a lovely word.
Check for anything around your house that is causing your bills to increase. With us, it has been a drip in the bathtub. Water bills over 100 dollars a month, plus it was the hot water, so power bills up, too. My S, who is 18, is learning to do all sorts of stuff, so we got everything at the hardware store and he fixed it. Hope the bills will go down. And you can learn to do all sorts of stuff on the internet to fix your own car. Express wanted 1200 to replace the air compressor on our car, and we told them it didn't need it, just small part needed replacing. They refused to do any but the expensive repair, so we ordered the part for 40 dollars, and S replaced it, and we took the car to another car place to have the air conditioner cleaned out and coolant put in, and it works perfectly for around 200 dollars. So stick it Express!! We have an old beater of H's that we have been secretly fixing up, while H isn't around. S has put in his graduation money, and bought parts and done it himself. Who knew boys still liked to do stuff like that anymore?
