Holy moly, my browser didn't like ImageShack!
Moving on, the first thing I'm seeing is you've got quite a bit of skills already going, and considering you need 8 different skills to max out - and having only the base game - that's already going to make it quite difficult. Base game has 10 skills by itself.
Since you can't unlearn them, I would recommend taking gardening and cooking and stop doing them altogether. Since the spouse already has enough painting skill to do portraits, relegate her to the kitchen and garden. In fact, only have her paint when portraits are necessary, or to raise her fun (and sell the paintings she does for fun!). Otherwise, have her tend the garden, and when that's done, she can hop on over to the library to read the cooking books and raise the skill that way.
Due to an extremely tight budget, I would also suggest selling the following: the treadmill (either buy the cheap $150 portable radio, and exercise to that, or go to the gym); the sink; the counter you use to prepare food; the stove (the spouse would be skilling up at the library anyway, so it's not needed, and it will also remove temptation for your founder). That should give you some breathing room. Keep the fridge, you can get quick meals out of it for free. Since you wouldn't be cooking, I'd also take the produce from the garden, and sell it for additional funds, no matter how small it might be. Also because you wouldn't be cooking, you won't need the sink to wash dirty dishes (while the sims are sleeping, just drag the trash to the trashcan outside). I can't quite tell what's on the walls, but if it's paintings she's done, sell them.
Since I can't remember if it comes in the base game or not, check your ceiling lights in buy mode. If you can buy the Bare Bulb ceiling lamp (I think it's $45?), sell the wall lamps and stick the bulbs on your ceiling. Since it looks like you have one big room, you only need to buy one to avoid the moodlet about how dark the room is, but depending on funds, I'd say no more than four (one for each quadrant of the house). Also, because you'd have less stuff in the house, you can also go into buy mode and shrink the house size (use the hand to hover over the walls and just click/drag it down) - that will also give you more money.
If you're going to keep that sprinkler, send the spouse to a park that has produce, and have her harvest them. Then she can plant them (might as well get the most use out of the sprinkler!), and sell the resulting produce for extra cash.
Ideally, you'd want the spouse to also learn fishing, at least enough to get deathfish. The deathfish is used in Ambrosia, but the other fish you get can be sold for funds as well.
Whenever you get around to generation 2, have the heir learn either cooking or gardening (I would recommend cooking for the Ambrosia recipe, and the superduper fridge from the profession). If you have a spare in gen2, they can take over gardening.
If you need a break from the monotony, send someone over to the graveyard mausoleum, and have them Explore the Catacombs - you can sometimes get some loot you can sell for cash.
When you get enough LTHP, buy the Food Replicator - tinker/upgrade so it has Improved Memory. Do the trick to store Ambrosia in the replicator, and save it to all three slots. This allows you to get 60 dishes of Ambrosia out of a single life fruit and a single deathfish.
Finally, if you're so inclined, don't hesitate to invite a friend to move in - especially if they're rich. But even if not, an extra $2k still wouldn't hurt. And this new roommate can also take over some of the spouse's load - maybe the roommate could do the gardening/fishing, and leave the spouse to cooking/painting.
(If you can avoid skilling up in handiness for your career, stop skilling that one too. Pay attention only to what's required for the career).
My, that's a book I wrote.
