I'm sure you will take this as argumentative, which isn't really my intent, but, other than the hot bath part, I did all that while homeless. If you get access to any food at all, you can work on eating better by educating yourself about nutrition.
I'm author of the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide and Pocket Puter:
The thing about being homeless is that you have a lot of time. I had a lot of time while in jail too. I exercised 2 hours a day and ate healthy and felt great physically. If I spend any time exercising or taking a walk or spend my time doing anything other than working every waking minute, my wife and kids will be homeless.
Your productivity schedule is why you're not able to learn - it's like wanting to build muscle before digesting the food. Study the system a bit, then go and exercise for half an hour, which is billable time because you'll be thinking about what you studied while doing a couple hundred mindless reps. If you can solve the problem away from the screen and keyboard, and then come back and just input your solution, it's work. You're being paid to think, not for how often you push buttons.
From personal experience it sounds like you're in a very self-destructive pattern that it going to result in collapse from a combination of illness and stress. Not performing any self-care means you are running up a bill that someone else is going to have to settle if you fail.
> [earlier] while I may work 12 hours in a day, I only get maybe 6-8 hours out of this work that I can actually justify billing for
> If I spend any time exercising or taking a walk or spend my time doing anything other than working every waking minute, my wife and kids will be homeless.
These two statements do not seem consistent with each other. If 4 - 6 hours of your work day is wasted anyway, you might as well spend at least some of that doing things to make yourself more productive.
In jail, you had a guaranteed roof over your head and a meal coming to you. Homeless people have been known to commit crimes to get that deal.
Please don't talk trash to me about what it means to be homeless. In addition to having spent time on the street, I have also had a college class on homelessness and public policy and also interned at a homeless shelter (years before I ended up homeless).
You say you don't have time to do anything but work, yet here you are on HN a) asking for assistance and b) wasting time arguing with me about things you know nothing about.
Some things for you to think about (privately -- I am not looking for answers from you here):
Why isn't your wife working? (Assuming you are in the US) Have you called 211 to find out what local resources there are to help your family out? If you have called 211 and they have nothing to offer you, have you called all your local churches to find out what meal and other food resources they have to offer?
I'm getting rather angry about how you reply to me, so I think I need to just stop here, let this go and let someone else help you.
I'm not talking trash. You and I have had different experiences with poverty. I meant that if I was homeless, I'd have more time like I did in jail. And I only meant that in contrast to how right now I have no time.
Technically I should be working right now, but I came here to ask for help thinking it might save me a few hours of frustrating non-billable time spent staring at code and not getting it.
We have looked into every single possible resource. My wife has a disability that's incredibly difficult to prove with insurance or the government. It makes her unable to move for large parts of the day several times per month. She literally drops things and is unsafe to drive, and it just randomly comes on out of nowhere. So she's unable to work because of this, and we're unable to get disability for it either.
We've gone through every single local church and food bank. She just stopped at the food pantry yesterday. We are on food stamps.
I'm saying all this knowing that it's a waste of billable time, because I think it's important that you know that first of all I don't mean any offense, and second of all that I'm not exaggerating when I say that we really have no other recourse at this point.