<prompt> Human: My husband and I need some outside perspective into our financial situation. We seem to be living paycheck to paycheck and we need help figuring out howwhat to change to start working towards our goals. Our goals are to have my husband finish school and begin his career, be able to save 3 months worth of emergency expenses, save for self-employment taxes, save for retirement, and save for a down payment on an eventual home purchase. Current situation:-Me F 22 some college, ECE teacher certificate, working 50 hoursweek as a self-employed home daycare provider earning 4435month gross-Husband 25 student, 75 credits away from graduation 2.5 years majoring in mathematics with a minor in education wants to become a high school math teacher, working part-time making 12.25hour for 20-25 hours per week. -Child 2 years old-3 petsCurrently we live in a rising COL town. Many people are moving here from California and Texas, making a severe shortage of housing and rental and housing prices are rising fast. We are in month 10 of a 24 month lease. We pay 1700month in rent currently. Similar houses are now renting at 2000month as an example of rising prices. We have to live in a house in order to run my home daycare program. Previously a relative was renting a room from us for 400month but they decided to move out. Due to the complexities of renting a room when operating a licensed daycare Im not sure if we will be able to rent the room out again. Starting this semester he will need to take our student loans to pay for tuition. Here are our bills:-1700 rent200 water and electric we are conservative in use, these costs recently went up with a change in the citys rates30 gas bill100 Comcast 215 car 11000 left on loan150 car insurance 160 phone plan40 trash bill35 minimum student loan payment owe 5700 total170 minimum credit card payments 4900 owed total on 3 cardsWe spend about 80-90 per month on pet food and litterAbout 40 per month on gas for the car we bike often600-800month on food this includes the food for my daycare programThe last two months weve been frugal all month and ended with about 400-500 leftover at the end of the month only to be hit with repairs on our car and home that depleted our savings and further put us into debt. Something is not working here and we need some help figuring it out. Ive been applying to donate my eggs just to help us financially but Im very nervous about long term health consequences. We dont have health insurance and the state says we make too much to get state health insurance. Most of my income isnt taxable after expenses. Weve discussed some alternatives like:-downsizing into the cheapest rental we can and me working out of the home and having alternating schedules for childcare purposes. Cheapest rental in the city right now is 995 for 500sq ft. if I worked outside the home I could make at max about 14hour full-time as a lead teacher in a preschool. -moving to a LCOL state that he can transfer with his job and school. Housing would be cheaper, but I wouldnt be able to earn as much with my childcare and Id need to get relicensed I could also work min wage as a childcare teacher. He also wouldnt qualify for in state tuition for awhile. What are we missing? What should we do?  <response>: Mid to long-term you should look into a combination daycaremath tutoring center. Otherwise for now all I can think of is moratorium on new pets for sure. Cash budgets so no unnecessary card spending. Consensus on meal and snack plans so you are doing targeted food shopping. Follow the Mr. Money mustache blog. Make sure you are in 100 lockstep agreement on spending so there are no bad surprises that get either of you irritated or angry at the other.Drill down as deep as possible on budget. In my 20s I was good at budgeting for the monthly expenses but I was miserable at factoring in the random one off expenses for example: budgeting for gifts and flowers for friends and family - your friends and family will be ok with getting a 20 bouquet of flowers. Get those under control and that will be another source nailed down. 