If you have any questions, let me know. This is basically a book of information and I'm more than willing to answer anything you have to ask. In general, my opinion is that you do not have a lot of "future" things planned out (meals, food storage, buying in bulk, propane, etc). You are just trying to scrape by, and that's not going to work for long. You need to be thinking long term AND short term, right now you are thinking ONLY short term. I can and food prep for a reason. If anything were to happen, we have food in our cupboards and don't have to spend that $450 on food every month until we catch up on whatever.
As per us, we are debt free (minus the new credit card for Home Depot, which is paid off by Jan). We own our home, mortgage prepayment off in 10 years from now instead of the original 30. We have two vehicles, a fantastic house, and spend a shitton of time with our kids. We also have college funds safely set aside for all of the kids (if they don't attend college, that money will go towards them buying a house - roughly $15 in each now). I have a capped retirement yearly, and am set to retire by the time I turn 62. We are happy. (Next year, I've saved for a greenhouse, FlowHive, chickens, and paving our driveway...) Did it take a long time? Yes. It did. Was it hard? Yes, the fuck it was hard! We persevered through it and got everything that we wanted to, because we were SMART with our money and continue to be smart with our money.
PS. Some good jobs to get are work at home jobs like call center work. It sucks, but it pays the bills. My two jobs paying down the debt was working at Sykes and Sutherland. I had two opposite shifts, and was always working. You might also want to look into Sitel or one of the others. All you need is a computer, internet, and a home phone line (which you can easily get from your internet company). One month full time is $1520 minimum gross. Your wife can do this, easily, and can bring in a NET profit while the kids are in childcare. These at home call centers are ALWAYS hiring and you don't need much experience at all.