<prompt> Human: So, Ive used all of the advice that I have seen here for more than a year and the budgeting has made a HUGE difference in my life so much so that I cant imagine not living this way for the rest of my days. My wife and I have a ton of student loan debt, though. We budget everything and do literally everything we can to pay down the debts, but after 2-3 years of concentrated effort it feels like we have made zero progress. I recently had an investment property go belly up huge damages from the tenants, so now I literally have no positives financially. Bankruptcy isnt the answer in my situation, but what is? How does one viably just get back to a neutral ground financially when there is so much debt on non-tangibles?  <response>: Im surprised at the idea you owned an investment property while you still had a ton of student loan debt. Generally it is inadvisable to have any investments beyond some base-level funding of retirement accounts until you are out of non-mortgage debt. So, its probably time to take a step back and start on that path, which has much less volatility, and so youre much more likely to see steady improvement. If you provide a list of your assetsliabilities and budget we may be able to make some concrete recommendations. 