<prompt> Human: After years of financial mistakes, un-earned vacations, and hard times paying rent with credit cards, my wife and I had racked up over 30,000 in bad debt. It was a burden costing us 700 per month in minimum payments, and one that we could only ignore. Thinking about something like that can be pretty crushing.The start of our break came in February of 2014. Two things happened that month, I paid off a car loan that was 280 per month, and got a small raise at my job after being there for 1 year. We realised with those two things I could pay all of our monthly bills on my salary alone. I was making roughly 2500 per month after taxes. CAMy wife and I own a photography company. It is a small business with a wildly fluctuating income. So at that time we decided to stop paying bills out of the business, and see if we could let it grow. In 6 months we had around 5k that was happily spent on a late honeymoon, and a small amount of savings. At the end of the year a couple of large jobs came in. In January, as a resolution, we decided to try and pay off all of our debt in 1 year. We buckeled down, fired up Credit Karma, and saw our scores hovering around 650. A new credit card used for a balance transfer helped with our highest interest card, and the funds saved up went right onto a couple of balances. Within two months, and the business feeling steady growth from putting so much effort in, we had paid off a couple of cards. The remainder of my income reduced from not paying them, started going towards payments. Every week we were excited to check the mail, hoping for another check, and frustrated when people were paying slow.The work was non stop. Full time for my wife, and 60 hours a week between the two jobs for me. We had a few great months, and by the end of June, our debt was gone.That was our trick, the idea that got us out. One income for bills, the other towards debt payments. Now we feel lighter, and more free. I have enrolled in my companies 401k, and we have resolved to set aside 10 of everything for investments. My wifes credit score just hit 830, and mine is 805.There were nights of browsing rpersonalfinance right before bed, now off to rinvesting...tldr: Wife and I used an entire income to pay towards credit card debt  <response>: I just wanted to say good job. I feel people might attack you saying you have to earn a high income to pay off 30k of credit card debt in a year, but you two worked your tails off to do so. I give both of you a lot of credit for tackling it together by working long hours. Hopefully you can set aside some fun money and go on a vacation that you truly deserve. 