<prompt> Human: I am looking for some advice about my familys financial situation. We have 27,000 in credit card debt and owe 6,000 in taxes. Really want to do something about the situation. Married, 3 children, we just had a baby and my husband has been home helping me without pay. We have a newborn, a 2 year old, and a 4 year old. The two older children have been sick, 2 year old was in hospital, and doctor says keep older children and newborn separate from one another to avoid our newborn getting sick. I am a stay at home mother. But my husband has been home helping me look after the older children while Ive been recovering postpartum and with it being difficult to care for all 3 at once when the older 2 cant be around our new baby. We are living off credit cards right now. 10 years ago we had substantial debt 16,000 and paid it all off within a little over a year by living in crappy basement apartments and eating pasta and beans. I feel that we cant do the same strategy when now we have children to look after. We were debt free and frugal until 2 years ago. We had lots of problems with apartments we rented and ended up having to move many times, which was pricey. With moving expenses, new babies, and chaotic times of having to eat take-out food we racked up credit card debt pretty quickly. We got an old car for cheap but ended up spending lots on repairs and eventually had to replace it with a better car. We have had times of unemployment and injury and having to live off credit cards. My husband drove without insurance in a desperate time, was caught, and got not only a huge fine but also a high monthly car insurance rate now. We overspent on some things we shouldnt have new furniture, birth doula, some others.We still have good credit. We are low income but manage without any social assistance and do not want to get it. We dont own a home yet and are still renting. Right now we are both at home with no income. We are a homeschooling family and I stay home to take care of the children with the cost of daycare, plus formula if I didnt breastfeed, plus transportation, it wouldnt be worth it for me to work regardless. My husband wants to return to work but they say that they might not need him yet whatever that means, and he just hurt his knee and might not be able to return right away regardless. When he does return there, our monthly income is around 3900 after taxes. Our monthly expenses are around 3700, not including credit card interest. He plans to work overtime which could get us around 4800 after taxes if he worked the maximum he could 60 hours weekly. He used to be self-employed and was not eligible for paternity leave. He was not at his current job for long before he took time off and I dont think they are required to take him back, and may not even take him back if they dont want to. He is not eligible for EI because he spent most of the year self-employed. So the situation is not very good for us right now. We are just living off credit cards and keep doing cash advances to pay our expenses. On top of it we owe 6000 in taxes which we cant pay. We have only 641 in the bank right now. We kept saying we would try to be more frugal, and pay off the debt, but it just kept growing and growing. Our limit for all of our credit cards combined is 45,000. I just applied to increase my limit for one of my cards and I was rejected. I have one credit card with 10 interest. Our others are all 20. I plan to stop getting takeout food now and go back to cooking from scratch and being more frugal. Is it worth it to invest more in a deep freezer to be able to save money long term? Cloth diapers? Or are those things not worth it with the upfront costs? What else can we do to pay this off?Our rent is 1750 which is typical for our area, utilities 214, groceries 700-800, gas 200, car payments 132, car insurance 500, cell phones 72, and internet 40 we are going to cancel internet. Then there are always miscellaneous things. That is a detailed account of our current situation. Thank you for reading. If you have any advice for me, it would be greatly appreciated. Assistant: I stated in my first post that my husband is returning to work, should be able to make overtime, and should be netting around 4800, with expenses at around 3700. He is just waiting until they need him again. Should we really declare bankruptcy? Is that really the best thing to do? Is the situation as bad as that? I was figuring with him working overtime we should be able to have the debt paid off in 2-3 years, since we would be able to put 1100 on it, and the interest were paying right now is about 200month. Any ideas how he can get the insurance lowered? The insurance broker said that was the lowest we can get.The cost of living here is high and rents are high. Our rent is typical. Average family our size spends about 1000 a month on groceries I read in a magazine article. There is no public transit in our town and we mostly shop at Wal-mart for groceries. We arent paying 200 monthly for gas right no but thats our general monthly cost when hes driving to work. He hasnt been off work for very long, only because I just had a baby. We have no extended family or grandparents in the picture who could help us. I am still reading through the replies. Sorry if I havent responded to something. Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated. Not sure if bankruptcy would be a good option though. Do you really feel like we cant pull out of this on our own?  <response>: your husband needs to get off his ass and get any job right now until his old job calls him back. Its ridiculous that this even needs to be told to somebody who has zero income and massive debt. And to be frank, what qualifications do you even have to home school your kids? your setting them up for a life of failure both intellectually and socially. 