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After getting laid off in January because covering federal green-energy grants became a non-beat on the 20th, this year has been hell.

I've networked as much as I can given zero resources for going out to drink after prior networking attempts were all about putting me down for not having some skill that's obvious to a 25-year-old but was never relevant to me.

I'm not in the technician phase of my life; I'm more of a project manager at this point, but no one wants heterogeneous skills.

Since the layoff, I've had 14 offers for contract work, temporary housing or both. Of those, 14 ghosted at the precise moment of finalizing plans.

Shit is breaking down in my van faster than I can address it -- I crashed with a friend for a night earlier this week just to charge 600Ah of LFP back to the point where the solar kicks in.

But the fridge controls no longer work, and as a result, it runs 24/7 instead of just when it needs to kick on. Despite this, it doesn't get below 50F (10C), meaning I can't store food for much more than a day, which makes getting cheap meat and cheese at the store a nonstarter.

So I'm having to find cheap meals where I can squeeze two rounds out of $4, as I can't buy shit from HEB and have it stay good for long enough that I'm not losing money.

Did I mention the ants have noticed the fridge is no longer cold? I had a burger in the fridge for an hour before going to eat it, and, well ... that didn't happen.

Then there's the matter of the 1200W of solar on the roof that now seem to top out at 280W. That's more than I draw by day, but I tend to use electricity at night as well, and a system designed to recharge by 6kWh/day that's instead producing 1.4kWh is a problem.

My replacement 5G gateway now draws 45W instead of the 18W of the older model. So that's 650Wh out the window for no reason atop 792Wh for the constantly running fridge.

And, hey ... look, the delta is 1.44kWh, meaning I'm only producing enough to cover the waste of my system.

I seriously don't know what to do here. I can't afford a room or anything, but I can't go without power. I'm trying frantically to network outside of formal events and maybe crash somewhere for a couple of weeks while I get used to hygiene again, but this just feels like a hole with no bottom.

There are charities around that do good work, but you have to be a good Christian (or at least pretend to be) to get assistance, and while I do consider myself a good Christian by virtue of following the teachings of Jesus, those are just too woke for Texas. "Love thy neighbour? Fuck off."