<prompt> Human: We are on a single income, and have a detailed budget spreadsheet. According to the budget we have 200 extra per month, which at times has been enough to save up a bit of an emergency fund, but some months our spending puts us over the budget. Weve also had increasing costs due to health issues this year chiropractic and dietary restrictions for our oldest child.Our CC is at 7.8k, and the max is 8.2k. Were already looking short this month, and will have to be late on some of our bills. We also have a fair amount of student debt, though were down to about 3-4 years left on that. Weve been on a tight budget ever since our 3rd child was born, and we just need to somehow get through these last 3-4 years on student debt to finally have some breathing room. Our monthly student debt is more than our mortgage :Ive been at my current job for 5 years now. While I could probably get about a 12kyr increase if I looked for a new job, there are a few reasons Id really like to stay. 1 I have a 5 minute drive to work, which has been amazing for keeping my stress down, and obviously gas and car weartear. 2 Our insurance is amazing, and only costs 300month for the whole family. 3 The company culture is great, everyone is super friendly, which as an introvert has made the job much more enjoyable.At times, I have been able to supplement our income by getting side jobs developing software. Ive mainly used freelancer.com, but recently its been much harder to win any bids without feeling like Im working for too little reward.My main questions are:1 Should I bite the bullet and just look for a new job? Due to where we live, this would likely mean increasing my commute to 30-40 minutes, as well as gambling on higher insurance premiums and less coverage.2 Is there anything we can do about the CC debt or student debt to help us squeeze by? Neither one of us are very good with financial stuff, and have difficulty with not just putting our heads in the sand :Thanks for reading, and for any advice you can provide!EDIT: Sorry about the flair mess-up Assistant: A couple of thoughts:The more information you can give us, the better input we can offer. Id like to ask you to post the following for the last 6 months: Your budget by category Your actual spending by category A list of all your debt, including the total amount, the interest rate, and the current minimum payment.While I want to avoid guessing at your situation while missing some key facts, here are a couple of things to consider: Have you asked for a raise? If you are able to get 12k a year elsewhere, is your current company willing to give you an extra 10k to stay? You dont need to frame this as an ultimatum, especially in a friendly culture, but consider starting a conversation about how you add value and go from there. Are you contributing to a 401k? I dont normally suggest stopping this, but it sounds like you are barely if at all able to keep up with your bills much less pay down debt so this might be something to consider. Certainly if you are contributing more than the minimum needed to get the employer match this should be cut. It sounds like your spouse stays at home to help with childcaremedical needs. Still, consider whether there is part time, nights, or evening opportunities for your spouse to get a job to supplement income in the short term. If nothing else, can you teach them enough to identify profitable side gigs on upworkfreelancer and have them stalk refresh the queue to claim the best gigs for you? Once you have your budget, go through and identify every recurring expenditure. Cut where you can, and for those that you decide to keep, call and ask for a bill credit for being a loyal customer. Monthly credits are great - one time credits are fine too.My final thoughts are short-term measures, but they might temporarily help. Call your credit card company and ask them to reduce your interest rate. It never hurts to ask! If your credit is decent, see if you can get a 0 APR credit card and consider a balance transfer. These arent free, but paying 2 transfer fee to save 15 on interest might make sense. Or, consider doing a stealth transfer - put all new spending on the 0 card while making big payments on the high interest card. This isnt actually reducing debt, but it is reducing the interest rate. Consider putting the student loans in deferment. This wont stop interest from accruing usually, but it can stop required payments for a short period of time. Again, this is a keep your head above water step, not a true fix.Human: Thank you for taking the time to write all of this out. The additional info will have to wait til tonight... Assuming I can fix the blue screen type error our home pc starting having yesterday :. Ive considered asking for a raise... but doing so is very much out of my comfort zone. Id have to really do some research and plan out what kinds of things to say, much like preparing for an interview. I would like to think my boss would pay 10k more to get me to stay, but like you said, I dont want to make an ultimatum. We already changed our 401k contribution to the minimum : Between being a mom and another obligation she has, it wouldnt really make sense for her to get a part time job she was in nursing before our 3rd child. We cant afford child care, which means the hours shed have for a part time job would interfere with sleep and our relationship things we both highly value. Id hate to put the loans on deferment, as that pushes the light at the end of the tunnel further away, but the other 2 suggestions seem to make sense. Ill look into those further.  <response>: Cool.You dont need to take all of the suggestions, but you need to pick at least some of them. To me, personal finance means that you get to pick what is important to you, but not everything can be important. To get out of a mess, you have to reduce expenditures or increase income. How you do that is absolutely your call, but the end game must involve one if not both of those factors.Anyway, my point is to hopefully in a loving way show you that you cant just say no to everything that I wrote. It sounds like big changes are needed to clean up some of the mess, and big changes are painful. Im sorry youre in this position. 