<prompt> Human: I am freaking out about my financial future and need advice. My wife and i were hit hard by the financial downturn both laid off when we were making 200kyr total. It took me 3 years to find a job. My wife had just given birth and she decided to start a childrens clothing business with a friend. We lived on 70,000 for 5 years which ran out in 2013. We live paycheck to paycheck and cant get extra jobs because my son can only goto school 12 time so we are busy driving and taking him to therapists. My question is what is the first thing i should be doing? I feel like i should be contributing to our IRA for retirement more than paying down debt. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Me 43 - Art teacher 21,000 teaching 3 classes wife 42 - Own Business 60,000 ish son 13 daughter 8 my credit 640ish wifes credit 660ish owe 38,000 ccs 13,000 student loans assets 850,000 House owe 540k 125,000 Rental property owe 100k - this was purchased for my sons college education 30,000 traditional ira all apple - havent contributed for 5 years 10,000 stock vtr REIT 50,000 various art - i wont sell this until i retire 10,000 401k wife old company we both have 1million term life policies 160month Assistant: You two have some big decisions to make. 39k in CC debt absolutely has to go. This is likely costing about 10k in interest alone, which is a whopping 12.5 of your income.You need the drastically reduce your lifestyle, particuarly the big ticket items. This should involve rethinking the 1 million in property you are holding, as well as your art collection. On the latter, i get that its something you are likely passionate about, but right now you have three years worth of your gross income sitting in art...Human: We have not used our credit cards for about 3 years. We pay cash for everything. I see the art collection only increasing in value. The painting i bought for 1k is already worth 30k conservatively. I think of it as my nest egg. Drawings i bought for 200 are 10k conservatively. I feel like in holding a wolf by the ears.  <response>: There certainly are options that involve keeping your art - they just have other tradeoffs. You currently have 300k in equity on your 850k home. Your could downsize to a 450k home, take out a 250k mortgage. This leaves you with half the mortgage you have now, plus enough money to clear the credit cards.What you are unfortunately now is asset heavy, but cashflow very poor. The ways to help you not feel this paycheck to paycheck is to liquidate assets and use towards debt, or go back to that 200k income level.What concerns me is despite posting, you seem very resistant to take any of the major steps identified, and your financials are on the precipice of becoming a lot worse if you dont take action. 