Hello :)

I passed my driving test in June 2016 - something which has been essential for getting around with all my children. Life was really difficult before we had a car...
We live in a small town, it's very expensive to live here, and we have 2 mile long school runs daily. In the rain and cold it was often challenging due to Autistic meltdowns, so we needed to use a taxi service which always cost double because we don't all fit in one standard sized car.

I borrowed money from family to buy our second-hand people carrier - which has been invaluable for school runs, food shopping, getting my children to appointments and being able to shop at inexpensive stores in a different town for living essentials.

The paediatric appointments we need to attend are in a town 20 miles away, and the bus service not being great here means that a car is even MORE invaluable to be able to get to these appointments given the time constraints of the hospital and my commitments to school pick up times. My second eldest also has counselling sessions in the same town; he has difficulties with self esteem and controlling his emotions, something which can be common when there are siblings with Autism.

The car has broken. :( I have only had it for 2 months. It's going to cost in the region of £300 to fix; and being in my financial position means I cannot afford the repairs without saving for several months - and it will just make life extremely hard for my boys again.

I don't receive maintenance from the boys' Father, and I myself cannot work as my children often need to have time off school to "reset" themselves because socially, school can be too much for them to cope with. I do my best to live on the money we receive from the government but it is very challenging at times.

If you'd like to help - we would really appreciate your support. I find it quite hard to ask, so it's taken a lot to write this. :)

Thanks for reading :)