<prompt> Human: My story of debt accumulation started way back in 2003 when I went to school for a liberal arts degree. It was an out-of-state state school paid the list price, Strike 1 and upon graduation took a job with a non-profit making around 28,000yr Strike 2. Total debt accumulation for the degree: 50,000 Strike 3.I met a great woman who was earning a bachelors degree in a social science field foul ball? and we started dating. She graduated and began her education to get her masters degree in the same field. She graduated and took a job and is currently making 49,000 New batter, Strike 1. Total debt for her undergrad and graduate programs: 50000 Strike 2.When she graduated, I was making 31,000 at my non-profit job and we both knew that if we wanted to retire before we were dead one of us would have to make more money. After discussing it we made the decision that I would go back to school, full-time, to earn an engineering degree. Engineering was always an interest, just never went for it. We considered it to be a financial investment for the future I sure as hell hoped anyways.So, I began a second 4-year bachelors degree in engineering and incurred a debt of close to 50,000 Strike 3... again. I will be graduating in May and have a job lined up which will pay a starting salary of 64,250 with a potential 2000 bonus based on performance. In terms of life-time earning potential, this jobsector blows my previous jobsector out of the water. The average salary for a mid-career employee in my field is 110,000. Im pretty happy with the fact that Ill be making more than double what I would have been making had I stayed in the same field, however we are now faced with the daunting task of paying this debt off.With all of that said, we are now expecting our first child in 7 months time. Weve been living relatively frugally up until now, however I feel that we may be living like hermits in the future to make ends meet. My wife and I sat down last night and looked at our current budget and tweaked a lot of things to get a better handle on paying down our non-educational debt so when the payments come for my loans we have more available cash to pay them with. Minus our car payment we are a one car family at this point and plan on buying a VERY cheap car with cash for me to take to work we have about 9000 in CCmedicaldental debt. I know that we will be able to pay that debt off by December, which is when my loans will enter or re-enter repayment status.In terms of how were repaying our non-educational debt: I have us shooting for knocking down the smallest item first, then rolling that money into the next biggest, and so on. From a financial standpoint I know that we should be attacking our highest interest rates first, but she and I are both results driven people and we need to see progress to stay focused. Yesterday we checked off two of our debts and felt really good about it, which will help us to check off the next, and so on.I am curious if any of you have suggestions on how we should proceed? Budgeting advice, repayment advice, lifestyle advice? Have you been in a similar situation and if so what did you do to get yourself out of it?Thanks for the support!  <response>: She graduated and took a job and is currently making 49,000 I will be graduating in May and have a job lined up which will pay a starting salary of 64,250So you both are making a combined 113250. Thats twice the average income of most Americans.You should be no where near any ledge. You both have solid incomes for your age and experience. Even with a child on the way, this is manageable. Is it going to be hard? Maybe. But its not like you both have 150k in debt and are making 30k a year. You might just have to put some other life decisions such as purchasing a house on hold for a few years until you get some of these loans paid off.As far as how to proceed from here, you both need to sit down and have a serious budget talk, and STICK TO IT once you have formed this budget. On your salaries, you should be able to repay this debt just fine. 