Honestly over the last 4 years my husband and I have been in a very similar situation. Hubby is the bread winner and right now he is out of work. He got hurt on the job and is dealing with workers comp issues. His unemployment has not started yet and we are in a financial bind at the moment. A few good things going for us is that our landlord is understanding and cuts us some slack. Its tax time and we will be able to file and get back our taxes to help us pay off the rent for x amount of months and then I just have to worry about making up the rest of the bills. We don't have new cars so no car payments. No credit cards either for us. We have cut everything to the bone really. No monthly payments except the basics. We do without cable or satellite. Prepaid cell phone instead of an over-rated and expensive plan. We only have one at the moment because we do have home phone/internet service together. If one of us goes out we take the cell with us. I analyzed all of our monthly bills, water,electric, insurance, phone/net/cell, groceries that could be cut or gotten rid of. I called up my insurance agent for better rates and found ways around the house to cut the electric. Or water bill is really about as low as it can get so I could not do anything there. With the grocery shopping I clip coupons, stack them with sales and look for savings aps such as Checkout51, SavingStar, Ibotta and ReceiptHog where I can earn money with my grocery shopping.
Cutting costs is easy when it is a necessity. A few years ago I had my entire family (hubby, 3 older boys ages 25,24 and 20 now) all save their receipts from what they bought at gas stations/stores on a daily basis. I added all of that up. If they got a cup of coffee out of the vending machine they had to write it down. They were all four buying drinks and snacks at the convenient stores that costed way more than what I could pay for drinks and snacks from the grocery store. I invested in a small cooler for the boys and a thermos for hubby to keep his coffee in. When the boys were off riding around seeing their friends or going to work/college they had that cooler and drinks. Hubby had his coffee thermos full for work. I made everyone take lunch to work/school.
Now finding work is another issue entirely. I have no idea where you live so I can't say what sort of place to check out for work but there are other ways to earn. Picking up scrap metal, saving aluminum cans, giving plasma are all ways to make extra money. Mystery shopping and little part time gigs such as those food demonstrators at Walmart are ways to earn a few bucks as well. If you want a few names of companies etc just send me a pm.
