Help Jack Restart with a Reliable Car

Hey I'm Jack, I just moved from California to Texas to restart my life and on top of a few other things, the car I've been driving just died. I'm raising money to put a down payment on a reliable used car of my own. Since I live in East Dallas and work in Denton, 50 miles north-west, I'm unable to continue working until I have a reliable car. I'm budgeting for the amount of $2,000 to cover the down payment, state taxes and whatever else on a small used car.

In February I left California to escape a violent and dangerous living situation to start over in Dallas. I've had a car to drive and found an excellent job(s) that I absolutely love but recent unavoidable setbacks have been making it extremely difficult to save any significant money. Recently I had to take a month from working to recover from a very serious injury to my left hand, while my roommate had to deal with the fallout of our belt sander exploding in his face. We're both kinda beat up but we were planning on trying to rent our own place by August.

The most recent setback has been the car I've been driving since I got to Texas. It was beat up and driven extremely hard before I ended up with it but it ran smooth, was responsive, had AC and had a really good MPG. 2 days ago it died completely in the middle of a left turn in a 4 way intersection. All these things combined have made it so any money we saved was quickly eaten up by unforeseen and unavoidable expenses. Since my roommate is disabled and medically disqualified from driving a car, he relies on me being able to drive to get a lot of stuff done both for work and our day to day. I really, really like my new job and want to continue doing it. I have another job opportunity that will require being able to drive coming up in the next few months that won't interfere with my primary job, so I really want to be able to keep the progress I've made.

Any and all help is incredibly appreciated as it helps me continue to move forward and helps my roommate and I not fall any further behind on getting our own place.