This sounds bad, but I have 118000 miles on my 2005 Honda Civic Lx, and I don't have the money to do the timing belt maintenance. A few months back when I had the money to do the work, I called the Honda dealership close by and they told me not to worry about it that my year had a timing chain, well a couple weeks ago I found out otherwise. So, basically my question is, does anyone have any advice on what to do about this problem, I do not have the $550 (nor the money in general to fix this problem, and I am supposed to be making a trip of 1000miles next week!!) to replace it.

Make the trip,timing belts mostly break under hard acceleration,or someone hard on their vehicle,you sound like neither.

Just to help clear it up a little. The timing belt should be done at or before 100000km according to the Honda manual. The timing belt also runs the water pump which is behind the belt and requires the belt to be taken off for replacement. If the pump is leaking or you suspect it to be bad (ie no coolant or the bearings wobbly), change it because the cost of the pump is much less than to do it later. Also get your cam seal, crank seal, and belt tensioner bearings checked. Again, if you can trust your mechanic, he will know once the timing cover is off. Have fun, you should be fine if you don't push the engine too hard/ Too hard as to making it accelerate hard and driving it in the higher RPM, keep it with in the middle of the RPM range so as to not stress the engine any more then it should be. But you really need to replace it as soon as you can with the water pump to save you time and money. Good luck and keep to the suggested oil and oil filter change.