<prompt> Human: Good morning everyone! I am looking for some personal advice on how my wife and I can climb out of the debt we are in. My wife and I have 2 kids, and together before taxes make right around 100k. We made some mistakes by believing her bonus structure from work would always be there, and last month, they took it all away. DebtCredit Card Total Debt - 11,800There are 5 total cards here ranging from 10.99 interest to 26.99Personal Loan - 1,500 This was for my wifes remaining dental work that insurance wouldnt cover.Monthly ExpensesMortgage - 1,000Car Payments 1- 600Car Payment 2 - 700 Let me explain why these were so high.. We only took out a 4 year loan on both vehicles with the intentions of paying them off sooner with the bonuses my wife was receiving.Car Insurance - 145Cell Phone - 100 1 line and she pays monthly payments for her phonePersonal Loan - 150 a month This was from aboveCredit Cards - 600 If we make the minimum paymentsStudent Loans - 55 minimum Total remaining is 3,000Utilities- 300 WaterelectricgasCableInternetPhone - 200 I work from home 2 days a week so having internetphone are needed. We use Charter because there is no one else besides DirecTV who is available in our areaDaycare - 640 monthlyGroceriesDiapersHousehold - 600 Roughly 150 a weekFuel - 360 budgeted for us both a month. We both work about 40 miles from where we live.I get paid 2215 a month, and my wife gets paid 2675 a month. Our total income is 4890, and our expenses are 5500 and this is just making the minimum payments. We tried to get a loan with our Credit Union to consolidate our credit cards with a lower interest rate, and they turned us down. I also tried to see about taking out a home equity loan, but since we recently refinanced our appraisal came in at about what we owe. So we dont have much wiggle room there either to borrow. Any help would be greatly appreciated.  <response>: The first thing to realize is that youre in a real emergency - you have significant debt, and your current spending habits make it impossible to make any real financial progress. That means its time to realize that you need to cut some things.Your mortgage, utilities, daycare, groceries, and fuel sound more or less fine. Im sure you can find some way to get savings by cutting here and there in those categories and you should if you can, but theyre not the reason you have a problem on your hands right now.600 and 700 car payments are not just high - theyre insane and are 90 of your problem, without a doubt. Youre actually spending more on transportation than you are on housing, which should never, ever happen. Either you both have luxury vehicles or your interest rates are exorbitant. Given your current situation, you cant afford those cars - either one or both has to go. At the very least, sell one and replace it with a cheap used car. Even severe maintenance work wont cost you more than 8400year, which is what youre spending on the more expensive car in payments alone.You should not be paying car insurance monthly. Get your payment schedule changed so that youre paying the entire 6 month premium all at once - this should save you at least 10 of the total premium. Yeah, youve got to budget for that payment every 6 months, but the convenience of monthly payments isnt worth 174 a year or more, which is what youre currently wasting by paying monthly.100month for one cell phone is waaayyy too much, at least for someone in an emergency like you. There are several cheap smartphones on the market you can buy with no contract for 100-200, which you can then take to a smaller company like MetroPCS or Cricket and pay for decent plans that only cost 30-60month. You might even consider getting your own cell phone to go along with hers, because...If you both had cellphones, you wouldnt need a home phone. Why does your work care if you have a home phone line or not? As long as they have your cell number, it should be irrelevant. What, do they want you to fax something? This isnt 1993.Cable is an incredible luxury that you simply cant afford. Drop it entirely and get Netflix. Its slightly less convenient and you cant watch sports, but thats what friends are for. You can probably drop your 200 CableInternetPhone bill to just a 60 InternetNetflix bill or less, depending on where you live, saving you 1680 a year.Once youve sorted out your monthly spending and you have a surplus, continue making minimum payments on your debt, and first use all of the remaining surplus each month to build an emergency fund with about 3 months of your monthly expenses. After that, prioritize your debts. You havent listed the interest rates on all your debts, but Im guessing the 26.99 credit card is the highest - so that goes first, and then go in order of interest rates paying everything else off.You should only consider going back to luxuries like cable TV, new cell phones, and new cars once your debt is entirely gone. Let me re-iterate - you have an emergency on your hands, and this is slash and burn time. 