Why don't you post a case study so we can take a look at your income and expenses and maybe make some suggestions?
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income coming in after child support health ins and taxes
$4008.00100.00 a month payment to us from my oldest daughter for her car insurance.
Costs going out for all bills Mortgage $1,294.87
expected doctor visits monthly $90.00
Netflix $7.99
Verizon (husbands cell phone, he won't change carriers) $48.56
Kitty Wireless (my cell phone) $42.95
Comcast Internet $24.99
DTE $85.19
Consumer Energy (this will be going up due to winter) $87.97
Montessori $313.00
Auto Insurance $226.05
The following are for food etc on a monthly basis
Food / Home Supplies, animal food - $800.00 (already shop at Aldi and use coupons, one of the kids has celiacs disease so she can't have gluten)
Gas - $300.00
Play Money - $100.00 ( Husband and I only, 50 each, we use this for gaming, a book, a new phone etc.)
Co-pays & Pharmacy - $100.00 (emergency-- we learned our lesson to have this due to problematic children and the issues that crop up.)
Kids activities/church - $90.00 (this is usually kid activity fees that crop up from the ex-wife not paying, then the kid presents the bill to us. We've tried to fix it and it just causes other issues. We deal with it as best as we can and do say no. This does include stuff for the younger 2 kids as well. and 10 of it is to the church)
Auto maintenance - $80.00 ( we will save this budget if we need to do something major, new tires, etc, or it gets eaten by other unexpected costs from having 4 kids and an ex-wife who expects husband to pay for 100% everything)
Home improvement - $80.00 (we will save this budget if something major needs to happen, ceiling fan, new refrigerator etc)r it gets eaten by other unexpected costs from having 4 kids and an ex-wife who expects husband to pay for 100% everything)
Travel -$200.00 (husbands work, but his work will reimburse)
Clothing -$40.00 (usually kids underwear, shoes. I already shop thrift stores)
New braces bill starting in Jan 2016 -$300.00
Hope this helps.
edit: we do carryover each month 300 to help cover the mortgage. We've been doing this since we moved into this home. So essentially we are 300 ahead on mortgage.
edit 2: we are planning on hopefully paying off the braces bill once we get our tax return. We are estimating low that the return will be right around 2k. which would pay off braces and leave us with 0 tax return money but we would gain back 300 a month.