Victoria's $11 Car Fund

11 Dollar Car Fund Progress

  

Last Wednesday I suffered a bit of a panic when I realized that my time was finally running out on the car I have been driving for six years. It is literally a clunker.

I had heard that term used to describe old cars before, and left to guess I would have imagined an old hill-billy style car sputtering and backfiring its way down the road. It isn't quite that extreme. Over time, things just fall apart. The rods that hold the wheels in place, the brakes, the belts, the seals, all the stuff that is knitted together in the engine hold, it all loses its adhesiveness and makes lots of noise as you roll along. The clunks aren't alerting the whole neighborhood, but they are making themselves known to you, the driver, and they feed an impending feeling of doom that any day, you'll be on I95 doing 65 and the rods are just going to fly apart, wheels flying through the air as your car careens into oncoming traffic.

Okay, maybe you haven't had that vision with your clunker, but that is how my worried brain has imagined it. So I have hated having to drive a car that I worry so much about, but haven't had the financial resources to do much about changing it.

My little boy and I have our dream car all picked out. It's an electric green Ford Fiesta; chosen for its style, sure, but what we think is the greatest about it is the amazing gas mileage. Fiestas drive like hybrids, and we love the idea that we could drive all over the state and back home again on one tank of gas. In a bright green car. Every time we see a Fiesta in any color we stop to admire it and imagine the places we'll go when we get ours.

In the meantime, however, I have been aware that my time with my current car, a '94 Mitsubishi Mirage, is running down. One of the reasons the gas mileage is a particularly big deal for us is that the Mirage has a crack in the gas tank, so it leaks a good bit of the gas out of it and limits our travel to how often we can afford to refill the tank as we travel along. We don't travel much, needless to say. To work and home, and fortunately I live in a city that stays open late, so I don't have to drive once I get home.

In my despair last week it occurred to me that if I asked every one I knew in my social media circles to loan me 11 dollars, I could get a car that is available to me through the mechanic I have been going to for years.  It's old and it's not very pretty to look at - it's no green Fiesta - but it is dependable and I won't have to worry about it flying apart or leaking gas, brake fluid, oil... yeah. And I won't have years-long car payments

A friend sat with me in Facebook chat while I set it up as a fundraiser on Friday morning, with a Facebook event page and a PayPal donation account. I was very anxious and really felt sick the whole time I was writing it up and posting it and creating the accounts, etc., so I needed that extra backbone of support that my friend gave me; I couldn't have done it without her encouragement. After all, what if no one cared enough to help? I could feel the awful sting of rejection before I had even asked one person, and my inner scaredy-cat was telling me not to even come close to the edge of that abyss. Rejection pain is physically real, let me tell you. Doing something like this required me to push aside every rejection memory that has embedded itself in my evolutionarily enhanced defense system.

So I did it. I invited everyone on my Facebook friends list, and in my e-mail contacts.

It is Sunday now and I am nearly halfway there. 47% of the money has been raised. I have been getting both loans and donations - some from people I don't even know who have found out about it from friends who have reposted my fundraiser event on their Facebook pages. It has been very touching, the love and trust that people are showing to me.

The people who make donations rather than loans have asked me to pay it forward, and to that I have an easy answer. I have an outlook that guides me to say yes as often as I can. If I see someone in need of help, I offer to help, whether I want to or not and whether I like the person or not. If someone asks for help, I say yes, as much as possible. Obviously, I can't help every stranded motorist, I can't give time that I just don't have to every group I would like to and I can't give as much financial support to every organization I would like to. I give what I can as often as I can. And I don't talk about it - and I take that part of giving pretty seriously. I have a point for mentioning it now.

While I can't be sure of the law of Karma, a very nice idea and belief system, but totally unproven, I can be sure that the energy I put out into the world is the energy that will return to me. I don't always blame myself when negative energy comes my way because the energy other people are sharing does not usually have anything to do with me specifically. I can't accept and share all of the energy that comes my way, and I try not to share too much of my own negative energy. Most all of us have it - Yin and Yang and all that - but it can be trained and controlled with practice so that it doesn't happen a lot. That is proven. (See Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell)

I will be paying this forward because I have been paying this forward.

On reflection, I don't believe this is me calling on the Universe to bring some of that Karmic payback my way. I am using this opportunity to take a situation I need help with to give other people the opportunity to put some good energy out there, so that they will feel more receptive to the good energy the world has to offer them.

If you are still here reading, thanks for staying with me. I know this was very long. I tend to write forever once I get started.

If you have decided to help me to reach my goal to get a more dependable car, thank you. Thank you for believing that not every one is trying to scam something for nothing. Thank you for trusting that not all people who need help are lazy and "entitled."

Sometimes, we just need to ask for help rather than suffer in isolation. Sometimes, we have to have faith that the world really does have enough to share with us and that all we have to do is ask and accept.

Can I Borrow $11?

Victoria's 11 Dollar Car Fund

Most people who know me well know that I try to do everything myself. If it looks like I can do it, I do my best to do get it done. I rarely have to ask for big help, and even more rarely ask for money help.

And then there are times when I try everything I can think of and run out of solutions. This is one of those times.

The car I have been driving for the last six years is near death. It wasn’t a peach when it was given to me – it was free for a reason – but it has gotten me and my little one around town sufficiently enough. It has gotten a lot of dents in the years I have had it, a byproduct of living in a city with side-by-side parking, so I made the best of it and painted blue spots all over it. The spots made a very old and falling apart car a lot more cheerful.  

This week I took my car to the mechanic for the usual oil change and look over. I have had bad news about the car in the past, and I have had to borrow money to fix it in the past, but this time there is just too much wrong with the car. Nearly every part of it is coming apart and/or leaking.

As I looked at the estimate for "repairs," with the total at $2,524, I forlornly asked if they knew of a place where I could find a car for about the same price as repairs to this car would be. I expected them to say no, but they said that as a matter of fact, they have a car they are selling for Jewish Charities with an asking price of $2,500. It belonged to an old lady who willed it to the charity, the charity sent it to the shop for fix-up for sale, and then asked the shop to try to sell it for them for $4,000. The price had been brought down from that because of its age (’96), but again – it was a little old lady’s car. It has 56,000 miles on it and all of the fixes it needed have been done. It would be a perfect opportunity to get a safe car for my little family, with no further payments (which I cannot do anyway).

The shop, by the way, is very reputable. They are a long time family owned business in Miami, and I have been going to them for years with never a bad experience. They do not normally serve as a go-between, but in this case, for charity, they are. Of course it sounds like the cliché "little-old-lady" car; in this case the cliché holds true.

I am looking for small loans of $11. If at least 227 people were to help me I would be able to do this.

With a loan of $11, I am hoping that the lenders wouldn’t be in a huge rush to get it back. I would be able to pay people back several at a time each month – in alphabetical order, I am thinking. So you might get the money back next year, depending on your name, but it would be like $11 found dollars. 

I would really hate to lose an opportunity to get a safe car at this price, but I have no other resources for a loan of this amount - banks do not make small loans of this sort, and I do not want to go with the types of lenders who charge unreasonable interest, which would only bring me money troubles that I really don't need or want. I have a steady job with a company that I have been with for almost five years, and I can be relied upon to make the repayments - in fact, I have people who can vouch for that, if requested.

And what would you get from this besides repaid? You might also have the good feeling in your heart that comes from helping a mom who is hard-working, doesn't complain about paying taxes, and who is actively involved in making the world a better place, starting in her community. That would be me. And if you believe in something like Karma, you would know that you have made a contribution to the Universal Greater Good, and that by doing good, good things will come to you as well. This is a truth that I hold.

So I am asking you to please consider making this loan of $11 to me. 

If you cannot on account of not knowing me, know that there are a lot of moms just like me who are struggling and who are trying to be strong and not ask for help, or who are afraid of being rejected when they do ask for help. I know that I am not alone in this. If you know a struggling mom in your community or family, help her out with a gift card to a grocery store or gas station. Gift cards are a much better donation than money, and if you give it anonymously, even better for her to not feel obligated to you.

Whether you decide to make the $11 loan to me, or you decide to help another mom - or dad, I know they are out there too - thank you in advance for helping to make the world a more trusting and loving place.

 
P.S. The button to PayPal is a “donate” button. I have a more formal IOU in writing that, while not legal in a court of law, would guarantee on my word and in my writing that I will repay the loan. I will get one in the mail to you as soon as I receive the request to do so.