I am 27, in school, and working part-time from home so that we don't have to pay childcare for our 2 year old daughter. My husband of 4 years works full time picking up overtime when it's available. We had to refinance the house a few years ago for court costs related to visitation enforcement with his then 6, now 9 year old daughter and bills while my husband was out of work due to downsizing; his child support also went up at the same time. Our homeowners insurance (so therefore mortgage payments) went up too... well, we are in FL so that should tell you something.

Our truck died a few weeks ago and we had to pay $300 in parts to get that fixed (which my husband did himself to save $). I had to skip some work orders because I didn't have available transportation that week- I lost about $200 because I have to drive to different locations for parts of my job.

It's not as bad as it could be yet, we've been able to stave off foreclosure and keep my husband out of jail so far (that means we pay his child support, lol), barely. We did just have our car repossessed 3 days before payday because we owed $240 ($100 due every 2 weeks + late fee). We got it back by giving them $490 (due + more fees), but now we are behind on our mortgage.

We want to pay the car off (since we only owe about $850, maybe a little more with fees) and have one less thing to worry about as we juggle bills until we can get our house sold (which could take up to 120 days or more in this market, we are listing it at the end of April), pay off all our debt, and move into a nice affordable mobile home.

We understand the importance of downsizing and budgeting. We don't have premium cable (basic internet package)- the only reason we have any at all is because I work from home via internet and my husband and I will do simple site design for friends/relatives for cheap. No dinners out or clubbing for us! We don't play games (how I wish I could play WoW), we don't have console games or iPods. We don't shop for clothes thanks to relatives who love buying kids clothes and Freecycle.org. We are practically hermits. The only time we went to the movies in the past year was a free preview because of BzzAgent.com.

It's as simple as that- we are broke. Some of it is our own bad choices (coming into the marriage with debt, buying a car with bad interest rates), a lot is just bad luck (layoffs, my husband's surgery for diverticulitis 5 mo ago at age 28, the court battle for visitation, etc.)

We will likely get by without this, but it will definitely be a lot more difficult. Having peace of mind about reliable transportation that won't be taken away from us if something else comes up in our finances would definitely be a huge help to our small, struggling, hard-working family. Thank you for taking the time to read our story.