<prompt> Human: Throwaway, obviously.31, married, with a 6 month old. Sole provider in my household.In the last year, I moved across the country for a job I thought was a promotion within my same company. It wasnt. I was lied to by the internal recruiter who was later fired for his actions in my recruitment. I ended up making about 60K less than I was told I would. Ate up my savings to the point of having nothing in my savings account and nothing in my 401K. Our daughter was born in March, around the same time 1 of our 2 vehicles got repossessed, got evicted from our apartment, and began living paycheck to paycheck.Managed to get my old job back, at my old pay rate, back in my old city in Texas.After 2 months of couchsurfing with an infant, and a dog, we finally got into an AirBNB style apartment for 2K a month all bills paid, month to month. We are going to stay here a few months to get consistency for our daughter. Its a nice place and we like it.After the insanity of feeling like Ive failed as a father, husband, and provider, Im looking at a 10,700 commission check on the 29th of this month, and got paid 1600 base pay today.Heres what Ive done so far, and what I need to do in the immediate future.Have cancelled all subscriptions services. AppleMusicHBO GOEtc. Have restructured my cell phone bill to be almost 100month less I pay for my indigent parents cell phone bill, which only accounts for like 20 a month for their flip phones. Switched car insurance from Geico to Progressive which is saving me almost 100 a month or 1200 a year.We eat clean food only, which is great. We buy a 50lb bag of brown rice, a 20lb bag of pinto beans, and 10lbs of quinoa, at a time. The rice lasts us 3 months, the beans and quinoa about 6 weeks. We dont eat a lot of meat, but when we do its cleangrass fed. We also have to buy coconut milk, since shes lactose intolerant and breast feeding, but weve gotten really good at finding the best deals.I owe 6600 to the collection agency for the apartment. I owe 4400 on the car that got repossessed. I owe 1200 to the birth center where we had my daughter and theyve been super helpful with my situation so far, not sending things to collections.I need to spend about 500 to get drivers licenses and car registered here in my state. Shes also pretty vehement about getting all of our passports for us, and needing to get her name changed on all the stuff. All of that, with passports would be about 1000.I also need to pay off the balances on our leased phones, and get caught up on the car payment, since Im running about 45 days behind for the last 6-8 months.All told, between paying off phones, getting our car registered, licenses, passports, and caught up on a few payments behind, Im looking at about 2500. I also need to pay rent and car insurance which comes to 2200.My net-nut for the month is as follows:Rent - 2200Car Payment - 450Car Insurance - 212Gas - 175 1.5 tanks a week in a Subaru ImprezaCell Phone - 150Food - 600Laundry on site, no WD in our unit - 90My take home is roughly 3K base, and Im taking home on average about an extra 5K after taxes in commission. Last month was a little bit of an outlier.Im so lost. Ive never ever been able to manage money, my parents couldnt either. Credit according to Credit Karma is in the tank. So is her credit from years of being a traveling musician. Updated my W4 with my employer to show married and 3 allowances, so that should up my take home.Whew. Thats depressing writing all of that. I have a couple of questions for yall.1 How fucked am I in regards to renting a place? I know I could pay off the collection agency, but dont evictions get stored in a rental history? Is there any way to fix that?2 Outside of my current car that Im keeping. The amount I have in collections is roughly 15K. Is it worth it to pay those off, even though theyll stay on my credit file?3 Should I be exploring bankruptcy options? I dont think I should given that with this job, I can pay off all that debt in 3-6 months. Im more worried about the eviction keeping us from the ability to get a permanent place.I lurk here all the time, and thanks in advance to everyone who replies. I really appreciate it.  <response>: My advice, for what its worth... You need to really focus on educating yourself because any advice you would get on how to clean this mess up wont do a lick of good in the long run until you fix whats broken about your situation: you. And I dont mean you in the form of being a failure - Im sure you are a wonderful husband and provider. But you say yourself you cant manage money.. this is what needs to change. If you cant do it for yourself, do it for your kid man. Your parents raised you to be a financial mess because they were a financial mess. Do you want your daughter to grow up a hot mess too? Think about how you feel right now. Is this how you want your kid to feel in 30 years? Is this the position you want her to be in?You can do this. You are clearly a smart individual. You know what needs to be done - it starts with education. You need Budgeting 101 brother. I would probably hold-fire on the big collections right now. Dont ignore them too long or theyll turn into lawsuits. I would pay the birth center folks because its not in collections. I would probably fight the wife a little harder on passports because how much international travel can you really afford right now?Find a counselor, find a class, find some financial management training and learn to manage your money. 