<prompt> Human: I am currently going to university and want to keep getting student loans, so I dont want to declare bankruptcy. I have over 50,000 about 40,000 in student loans in credit card debt on three different cards. Ive been struggling and juggling for years now, but it seems that the only thing I can do is keep them from maxing out. I get one down, but then while focusing on the other, the rest go up. I have nothing such as cars, or house, or anything like that. If I focus on one at a time, I think Ill be able to get them all down much sooner. Any advice?Also, my life was an absolute wreck for a long time. This is where most of the debt came from. I crawled out of that and have a pretty decent life now. This debt is one of the only things holding me back. Assistant: Put all the money you can towards the debt with the highest interest rate and pay the minimum on everything else, then just systematically work through all your debts in the same manner.Human: Thats the problem, the minimum takes out the impact. For example, I pay 300 on one just for minimum. If I put all the minimums together, Id be able to pay off the smaller credit card in a few months.  <response>: In that case, the first thing to do is to cut up or shred those cards. If not, the temptation to use the available funds even for seeming emergencies will be paramount and hard to dismiss. If it is an ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY, you can always reorder the card from the company.If youre having troubles going by interest rate, focus on putting whatever you can toward the one with the lowest balance, just to get it out of the way and create some positive equity. After its paid, use your minimum payment from that balance you just paid off and put it toward either the next lowest balance, or the highest interest rate, your choice at that point. Ultimately, unless the interest rates are astronomical, it wont make that much difference it you approach it this way. It WILL save you a little money in the long run, but so much that its worth struggling over as when the payment rate increases, it causes the time for interest rates to accrue to lessen as you go. Keep doing the same thing; When the second is paid off, use the combined minimums from the first two to pay off the third one in no time at all. It works, and you can then use this model to pay ahead on your student loans or any others that you have. At that point you may also be able to reconfigure your budget to make living a bit easier as well.Ive been working on this model for a year or so now, and can happily say that I will be virtually debt-free minus my car and student loans by this time next year. Just know, that it will be very slow at first, but as you roll over the minimums to new debts it compounds and pays debts off faster with each one youre focusing on. But again, make sure to keep up the minimum balances on all the others in the mean-time, and try as hard as possible to not accrue any new debt...Thats the real key. 