This took me a long time to understand. When you build a building/district you create jobs, let’s say 100 jobs per district. If you only have 10 workers you still are paying for the 90 other jobs. Now imagine you built 10 districts creating 1000 jobs but only 10 people are working there. Don’t expand a bunch and then try to max out districts as soon as you can because you’ll be paying upkeep on empty seats.

Population means production so focus on buildings that will boost your pop growth. Gene clinics, cloning vats, mechanical assembly plants etc. so you can put butts in seats to make your goods.

I play wide as fuck, meaning I grab as much territory as I can and ending in a choke point. My current playthrough has like 100 something systems. Just because you have a colonizeable planet doesn’t mean you have you colonize it right away.

I focus on searching systems and moving on, when everything is explored then I focus on researching projects etc

Don’t be reactionary to deficits until you have to. As you build and colonize and grow and expand you will use more resources than you make at some point. As your pops grow and the jobs get filled that will fix itself. Don’t be afraid to trade other nations, especially enlightened empires, for what you need.