<prompt> Human: Hey guys I made a throwaway account just to post this question. Should I withdraw my 401k in order to pay off debt?So some background, Im 28 I have a full time job making 75kyear, I co-own a house with one of my best friends as an investment property rent outsell if market ever turns around and weve been doing this for 2 years now with 0 issues. Im making enough to pay my bills, but because the debt that got me to where Im at now, Im surprisingly still living paycheck to paycheck almost. I have roughly 12k in credit card debt from car, college living, post-college broke days, an unknown number for college debt, and Im still paying off about 10k in taxes from when I had a 1099 position. I couldve paid off my taxes, but I made the decision to use that money for a down payment on the house. So while Im still paying off taxes, Im no longer technically paying rent.Now before people give advice just be aware that Im already fully aware of many of the basic tricks to lowering my debt such as: Stop spending money on myself, dont eat out, and bunker down and focus purely on paying off debt for an extended amount of time, etc. I used to be a regular on this sub, so Im fully aware of these answers. To be honest, Im bad with my money and my fix for it has always been to make enough money to offset it. I have costly hobbies that Im toning down on how much I spend on them video games, board games and videography, Im very social, I host a lot, Im also young and stupid. But I also still believe in being happy in life and my lifestyle makes me very happy. One of these days Ill follow the advice that is so obvious, but for now Im honestly going to live it up for a couple more years.The reason why Im seeking advice is because Im at a weird little crossroad in life. Im in the running to nail a 100kyear job and Ill have to transfer my 401k which is roughly 12k which will probably end up being around 8k after taxes, etc. Ill also be receiving my W2s shortly so I should be expecting a 2-3k return which is going straight to the IRS to pay off tax debt. Im also in the process of withdrawing a 401k that I started when I was 16, its at 1.4k Ill get roughly 1k after taxes, etc and has just been sitting in an account doing nothing since then. So what Im thinking is that I could easily pay off my tax debt, along with a credit card or two. Then over the course of the next couple of years I can definitely pay off my credit card debt while also freeing myself to be able to invest.Is this a bad way to go about it? I know it sucks that Ill be pushing back my retirement and losing a lot of money to penalties, but I feel like handling debt right now is more important. Also by freeing up my debt a bit Ill be able to investpay off other debt since my pocket will be a bit more loose. So what do you guys think?Update: I swear its always pointless posting in this group, just as a heads up 1 person simply answered the question of whether or not its a good idea to do it with numbers to back it up so thank you for that uslayerdork. Everyone else gave me the exact answers I was already fully aware of and even stated in my description.  <response>: Youre not broke, you just need to adhere to a budget. Withdrawing retirement funds for debt is always a last resort. I would not recommend it.It looks like you need to address the habits that got you into debt. 