US Authoritarianism

There is no easy answer with the shit knuckles we have in power.

1. The number one thing everyone must do: Create a real world budget. Use excel, learn how to create the basic addition algo's in the cells, add every single penny spent into the spreadsheet. This is easy if you mostly use a card because every expense is listed in your account. Set the budget up for an entire year, one row one paycheck, left to right, expenses top ro bottom, you know when rent, and car insurance is due, and paychecks are coming in, you know how much you will bring in if you work 40hrs a week, and if that changes you change the cell to match reality. Have a full years worth of every single expense, you might take a month or two until you have entered every single reoccurring expense, but once completed you know how much is due by when and how much money you exactly have. This can be stressful, but you can't fix anything until you know exactly what is happening from an expenses standpoint not a survival one.
2. Cut spending on reoccurring expenses. Cut streaming services, get your movies from the library if you have one that has a selection of newer movies(a lot do now). Buy as much groceries as you can on sale, you will always get ridiculous amounts of food if you only shop sales, some things like milk can't be bought on sale, when it is on sale, buy as much as possible and freeze it. Once you have a supply of food built up, get a full size freezer, you literally need a full size freezer so much you should go into debt to get one. Now fill that full size freezer with food that is on sale. Literally within a month the money you save on food easily pays for the payment on the freezer. Downside, every meal must be cooked at home. The upside, full meals can cost around $1-$2 per mouth fed per meal, freeze the food that can be frozen and make smaller amounts of the food that goes mushy when frozen, and that will include meat, vegetables, pasta, and or rice, or other staple foods, this is even if you're single but some one off items can throw the final price higher like if you don't like freezing vegetables after cooking them and are in a situation where a specific amount which is too much for you, is the minimum amount you can cook.
3. Getting meal cost down to the $1 range, removing and reoccurring expenses that you don't need... Netflix might be super useful for helping kids stay busy for a single parent so do what works for you, but where possible, look for cheaper or free alternatives like setting up your own media server and putting your own movies and shows on it and spending no money on streaming services. -A 5yr old computer can using jellyfin can stream 4k content to a roku streaming stick if the file is encoded to compatible settings first. 1080p it can transcode on the fly pretty easily. (Reuse an old PC to replace streaming using a free app like jellyfin)
4. look ahead for car repairs, know what maintenance is required annually for your car, save as much as you can to put towards requirements, then look online for what parts are going out on other people with the same car. Find avg costs for those repairs. Expect those repairs WILL be required and then never touch that money until the repairs are required. That money is gone unfortunately but you get to stay on the road. With the savings from food alone you can hopefully put something towards repairs and maintenance. If you are lucky the repairs won't be required for awhile and you can save enough to just pay for them without using a credit card. You might be able to save money by setting up an unconnected savings account then having $20 direct deposited from every paycheck, and just forget about it.
5. Knowing exactly the situation of your budget is the first step to making life easier. If you're in the red $500 a month then you have the proof right there. You know you need more money, or cut expenses. There is no in between, but at least you know how much more you need not just some intangible number you imagine you can never achieve.