<prompt> Human: My financial situation:I am 5,000 in credit card debt. I make net 3200 a month, and I have 1600 in recurring payments every month rent, insurance, utilities etc.What Ive been doing up until now to deal with the debt:What I have been doing is trying to be as frugal as possible with my expenses on the day to day and when my paycheck comes in I pay off what I can on my credit cards. This hasnt really solved my issue and Ive been having unexpected expenses, and my previous months debt which I partially pay off with my salary is just replaced with this months expenses. And so on and so forth. It never gets solved.I thought of this strategy yesterday:I thought of an alternative method of taking care of my debt, please give me your feedback and let me know if this makes sense or if this new method wont solve anything. How about instead of doing what I described above, I take my salary for this month and budget it for this months expenses, and I allocate a certain amount to cover part of the 5,000 debt. I look at it as an expense for this month, but I could only cover part of it, so I allocate X amount to cover it. And instead of using my credit cards to pay for groceries etc, I use cash so as not to add to my credit card debt. Maybe if I calculate a nice plan and I stick to it according to this strategy, I can pay off my debt more effectively? Ill be able to pay off much less every month on my credit cards since I am changing my payment methods using mainly cash so as not to add to the debt, so I do not know if this is smart. Will this help? Thanks!Possibly relevant:Ive started using YNAB, and I am halfway through Ramseys Total Money Makeover book. It seems that my new strategy fits the attitude of both that app and his book. Am I correct here?  <response>: Your strategy is called budgeting. It works. 