Admittedly, this is not the way I envisioned my first journal of 2015 would be, nor did I want to open the new year asking for money for anything not related to my upcoming wedding. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and due to the worst string of luck I've ever had at my current job, I'm really left without much choice.

Ever since before Christmas, I've been struggling mightily with earning enough money to stay afloat and out of the negative. January is typically pretty bad for cabs, but this year it's much worse for me personally than I could have predicted. Starting with the fact that I needed about $1700 for the first week of January (rent, electricity, credit cards, and the rest of the cab lease I couldn't afford because I didn't make enough), I started the year in a pretty big hole. Ever since, I've been fighting off overdraft fees for every single bill that's come along, and no matter how much I work, there just isn't enough business to go around. What little business I manage to get, the customer almost never pays in cash, which means I am left with nothing to put in the bank to pay bills with, which leads to multiple overdraft fees, and any small amount of cash I do get goes straight back into the gas tank. It's a vicious cycle, and I've been extremely frustrated.

What's worse is not only have I had almost no decent runs, but I've also been extremely unlucky. I didn't even make my lease last Monday until late night, and that's when I started getting shit on. On Tuesday night, I needed $38 in cash before 9pm to avoid an overdraft fee from my bank. All my runs that day had been credit or gas money, and I spent the last 2 hours before the deadline sitting on my ass, wanting badly to work... even a crappy convenience store run would have helped... but nothing was happening. So I ended up getting not one but two overdrafts, putting me over $110 in the hole.

Then it got even worse. I had not 1, not 2, but 3 no-shows in a row that I wasted precious time and gas driving around for. The first one was the same chick who had stood me up in Charlotte the day before New Year's Eve. And the 3rd one was a guy who called me personally to ask for a ride at 10:30 (which I stayed out longer for) only for him to call and tell me he didn't have any money. Then I went home to sleep, woke up, and found out my personal airport run had been cancelled. I came out to talk to my bank, borrowed my mate's last $30 (which I immediately sank into my overdraft debt. Now we can't buy food or medicine for Kat, which she really badly needs) and then about an hour later, I received a fraudulent call to Salisbury (30 miles each way) placed by an out-of-country scammer who had been sending multiple cabs from multiple companies to a 95 year old man's home and using Magic Jack to make his number untraceable (and of course the police were as helpful as they were lazy, telling the dispatcher it wasn't even a crime to send unsuspecting cab drivers to someone's house without any intention of them being paid... and I know for a fact that is bullshit. Defrauding an innkeeper anyone?) Basically anything that could go wrong for me has, and there doesn't seem to be any improvement in sight.

Anyone following my Twitter account knows I'm basically at the end of my rope. I have more bills coming before Monday, and I still can't earn any meaningful cash to get out of the hole I'm already in, so every bill that comes through will be another overdraft. I'm so goddamn frustrated I'm going out of my mind, and I've been close to a breakdown a few times. Poor Kat has done her best to help, but she's frustrated too because there isn't much that can be done to stop my shitty luck, plus she's really sick. I'm sick too, but I still have to work, yet no matter how late I work, it doesn't help me, it only makes me feel more and more hopeless.

TL;DR - Due to shitty, horrible luck all month, I am in desperate need of cash, and I have no way to get it fast enough to avoid multiple overdraft fees without outside assistance.

Let me say this now. I HATE asking for donations. Hate it. I always try to give people SOMETHING in return, and I usually end up bogging myself down with work as a result. I still have commissions to finish from the last time I asked (yes, I know, I remember. I'm trying to find time, honest.) but I can't find any other way around this, and if something isn't done soon then I'm going to fall into a hole I can't get out of.

I'm offering pay-what-you-want colored headshots/icons and accepting any and all donations to help get me through this. The minimum asking price is $5 for a headshot, but if you can pay more, I would greatly appreciate it. You can also donate and decline a headshot in return, if you are simply interested in helping, but I feel the least I can do is do a really quick icon for you to say thanks. If you can't donate, any signal boosts are appreciated as well.

I need multiple hundreds of dollars pretty much as soon as possible, since the bills coming through are auto-deduct and I can't stop them from taking money out, even if I have no money to take out. Meanwhile, I'll continue to spend every possible waking moment working, either chasing fares or working on commissions and these headshot icons, for as long as my energy and sanity can hold out. Any help you can offer is appreciated. I'm just sorry I had to start the year off like this. Hopefully it will get better. It can't get any worse, right? *ahem* Well, uh.... yeah, hopefully it will get better.

If you wish to donate or get a headshot icon, send your funds through paypal (as a "Gift") to jtigerclaw@gmail(dot)com. For those wanting an icon, I'll need a reference, or I'll just go to your page and pick the most recent best reference I can find.

Thank you, everyone.

-JT