<prompt> Human: I cant budget. Im awful at it. I cant keep track of much and my anxiety associated with bills is at an all time high. Ive tried making a budget through BOA but its not accurate. Ive tried a spread sheet and soon forget about it. The debit card gives me a sense of invisible money. My credit was ruined by being late on student loan payments last year I was jobless and couldnt afford it which I had slowly been building back up from a previous bad time laid off and lived on credit cards. It went from 690 to 520. It killed me. Ive been trying to pay these credit cards off forever and cant seem to get it done. My capital one card builds up an insane amount of interest. Ill make a 100 dollar payment and the next month the interest brings the balance back up to almost the same balance. I cant win. Its been at 1,992 for a almost a year. I have student loan payments of 172 a month on a 13,000 loan, but am 800 behind at the moment. Every late payment drops my score another point. I just got back on track with a steady job. I make roughly 58,000 a year. Ive finally reached the point where I have a few dollars left over. I have a ton of bills. My car payment. My car insurance. My rent. My utilities. Ugh.. I live in a very very expensive city Los Angeles. And yes I have two roommates and split groceries with my partner. I keep accruing unexpected costs. I had to see an eye doctor because my vision has deteriorated. That was 300 for visit and glasses etc. my mom is in a rough patch and doesnt have money to eat or live so of course she calls me. My car had issues that needed to be fixed. I have celiac disease so Im limited in what I can eat and usually costs me a lot of , unfortunately. Im so lost. I cant even get approved for a freaken computer pay off program since my laptop died and now I have nothing to work off of, and cant afford to drop a lump sum. I do specific work that requires a high functioning laptop such as a Mac, again, unfortunately. I need help figuring this out. I dont know how to reach a point where I can pay things off and be smart about it. This forum encourages me when I read it. I finally started a savings and decided to put 250-500 a month away but like I said, unexpected expenses keep seeping in since I finally got stable, and now need to take care of my body by doing checkups, cavity fillings, and even a dermo appointment to get a cancerous mole removed. I cant seem to catch my breath. Can anyone help me plan something or figure out how to approach finances? I cant get it right. Im sure I can be doing more or doing things smarter. I just cant seem to figure out. Help?  <response>: Take a breath. Looking at your income and your debt, it doesnt look like youre in a terrible situation. You can work this out no problem. First, list out all of your bills you have to pay every month. You can do it here if you want, or in a spreadsheet. Include minimum payments for everything. Estimate your variable expenses food, gas, electricity on the high end of what you normally spend. Add an extra hundred bucks a week to set aside for an emergency fund.Add up the numbers from this list. Is it higher than your income? If so, theres more work to do, but we can figure it out. If you have money left over, start putting it towards your debt. You can do the snowball method listed elsewhere, or put it towards your highest interest debt - whatever you prefer.Youre going to be okay, most of us have gone through this. I know when I was in a lot of debt, it was easier for me to close my eyes to it and pretend it didnt exist then to break it all down like this. But that just gets you in more debt. Figure out the scope of the problem, and youll be on your way to fixing it. 