You're just looking for work. There's no shame in being in this position, at least in this economy. And if you're going to refer to your reputation, why conceal your identity (which is probably already pseudonymous anyway)?

2) Not sure what the moonlighting clauses are for my current employer, and while they're aware of the other thing that I'm doing, they're likely more forgiving in that it doesn't come anywhere close to competing with their core product. This is a little different.

3) I don't want my credit-worthiness to come up in my day job, as my employment is somewhat contingent on my ability to make purchases for the company.

I don't have any work for you, but I feel for you. I was working on a project with a guy a couple years who lost his job. He'd previously bought a house, and rented it out when he moved to another state - then the family renting from him stopped paying the rent without moving out, meaning he had to try to cover a mortgage with no money. Absolute hell on Earth for him, things got all screwed up, but he's back on track now. It can mean a shit few months or year, but if you keep going you'll find a way, and come out on top.

Practical advice - cut your expenses to bare bones NOW.

The biggest mistake I see in people under a serious cash crunch is to say, "Well, I'm $2000 short on my bills... fuck it, what difference does another $5 make?"

Make a list of healthy, cheap foods, and go stock up. Lipton black teabags, instant coffee, oatmeal, rice, beans, tuna, maybe wheat bread if there's decent bread where you live. Stock up, and stop eating out. If you've got to eat out, get only a couple $1 sandwiches off the super discount menu from Taco Bell or another fast food place.

Cancel your cable TV. Think of cutting back your phone plan. Try to negotiate down or downgrade any insurance plans you have. Think about downgrading your phone minutes, and potentially canceling 3G internet if you don't really need it for testing what you do.

Look for recurring charges to cancel - magazine subscriptions? Do you have any bank fees? Call them up and have them cancel or change the account.

This is surprisingly unintuitive to people who are in a crunch, because, "Screw it, what difference does the $20 make?" But you might be able to carve $500 per month out of your budget in just little nick-knacks and expenses, which will add up. By all means, keep seeking work, but it's time to audit all your expenses. I know, it sucks, it seems like it won't make a difference, but do it. You can always scale the expenses back up once you're on more solid ground.

Good luck and godspeed. I don't have any work for you, but if you have questions or I can be of assistance in some kind of marketing yourself, pitching, proposals, something like that, go ahead and email me. Info in profile, confidentiality assured.

Godspeed, you'll get through. You'll shake your head at this period of your life later and laugh, you can count on that.

The criminal irony here is that we'd already done this with the last job transition. Cable TV, gone. Internet is a necessity, but I downgraded from the 15Mbps plan to 5. Pasta, rice, oatmeal, potato, noodles are the new staples, and steak has been replaced with chicken. Netflix, cancelled.

Figuring out what ELSE to cut is the real killer. But there are always to do more with less.

Thank you.

Probably that? Might not want his employer to know that he is trying to gain more paid work around his work with them?

And throwaway - if you're not deluged with other offers, drop me a line (rand at seomoz dot org). We're a Ruby shop, but might have some opportunities.

I'm perfectly happy to sift through the negativity as, well, there are always other sides to the coin, but yes, the response to this is literally inspirational.

1) Ensure you communicate with your creditors. Keep them in the loop - burying your head in the sand is the absolute worst thing you can do.

2) Create a budget describing your monthly income and expenditure.

3) Work out what you can lose. If you can cancel contracts for luxuries, downgrade phone contracts etc. - do so. Reduce your monthly expenditure as much as (reasonably) possible.

3) When you realise that your income doesn't meet your reduced expenditure; prioritise your debts. Priority debts are generally the debts where defaulting will lead to homelessness or prison. Ensure you pay these first.

4) Contact the remaining creditors and start negotiating over reduced payments. You'll be surprised how many will be happy to help. Don't accept no for an answer. If your financial situation gets far worse, your creditors ultimately stand to receive nothing - remind them of this fact.

5) Consider contacting a credit counselling service, there's a lot of (free) advice that's worth investigating.

6. Realise that this is temporary - there are a lot of people who are working through similarly unfortunate circumstances. You will recover.

If you want others to see your email, put it in the about section.

What does your wife do? How can we help her?

Jollari's comment is especially interesting to me for this reason.

Just emailed you. Given the outpouring of offers, you may have found something (congrats if you have). If not, look forward to hearing from you.

PS: good luck, OP.

He needs a facebook app. Not exactly sure what, but a game or something that will provide some marketing.

Email is in my profile.

I occasionally work with a couple of Flash developers though, so I'll pass them your information.

best of luck to you and your wife! it seems like HN's got you covered

I need someone to add a login/user registration process to CompassionPit.com (build on pylons + cogen) as well as add a wordpress blog (i have no idea how you're going to accomplish this since the web server is "paste") but if this is something you can do, shoot me an email with an estimate