<prompt> Human: Maybe this can inspire someone who needs it.June 2013 - I had just decided to retire change jobs from being a college campus minister, and so I had no job and 43k in debt 25k in student loans, the rest on credit cards. The only asset I had was my 1986 Nissan 300ZX, which was breaking down from my lack of money to maintain it. I was engaged and knew I had to do something so after 3 months of job searching I finally got a job doing IT work I have an associates degree in IT in another city. I was offered 42k a year salary. I move there and live with some family friends to save money and save up for a car. After 2 months I buy a 99 Nissan Altima for 2k cash. Not much money went into debt except the required monthly payments.August 2013 - I get married and my wife and I find an apartment to move into the week before our wedding. We looked at some really dumpy places for 600 a month, but I didnt feel safe in those neighborhoods at pretty much any time of day. So we settled on a apartment in a somewhat nicer part of town, closer to my work, that was 800 a month. That was as low as I could go and be comfortable living in my own apartment.This is when things really start to take off. My wife is a very frugal person she lived in Africa for a few years with nothing, and we help each other when we wanted to give in. We took most of the money we received from our wedding and put it towards the debt, starting of course with the highest interest CC. Mine werent too bad honestly since Ive always had good credit even with the really high utilization. The most I was paying was about 13 its crazy to me now that I ever paid that muchWe saved everywhere we could. For the first months she stayed home and found every way to save money to put towards debt. She cooked every meal, and we didnt do anything but spend time with each otherworked out for the newlyweds. We had a strict budget and spent that to the dollar. She would go through the grocery ads and find things on sale and thats what we ate that week. We only had 1 car my old one being broken, and so I drove to work and back and that was it. No where else unless we had to go. I made my own lunch every day while all my co-workers went out and we didnt go out drinking or really anywhere. We might go see our family and friends but we never ate out. We did have a TV I owned, but we just used an OTA antenna I had and watched our movies we already had on DVD. Pretty much the only items in our budget were Rent, Watersewer, electricity, internet service lowest I could get, groceries, gas , car insurance, and then debt. My work paid for my cell phone and I got my wife a Republic Wireless phone that cost 12 a month using our internet. Nov 2013 - I get my wife a part time job at my work, making 10 an hour. She has a degree in nursing but we wanted to have kids so we always planned for her to stay home. Since she works at my workplace, we keep the 1 car and ride together. Now she brings home around 800 a month which all goes to paying the debt. I also start getting some overtime at my job and that helps a little as well. We are literally paying maybe close to 2k or more a month now to the debt.Oct 2014 - A year has gone by and all the credit card debt is all paid off, and we are just working on my much lower interest student loan debt. But now we find out my wife is pregnant! We are so happy but we really dont want to raise a child in our apartment in a sketchy part of town. In the year or so weve been there, wed seen some bad things that would make you shudder. So we consider how we could buy a house in a better neighborhood. We decided that a home right now was more important than the debt temporarily, especially since all the loans were under 6 interest majority of it was at 3. Also they kept raising the rent on us and it had gotten to over 900 a month. I also was getting some overtime at my job, but I was moving up quickly. I was able to negotiate a 9 in place raise when I set up a meeting to review my hourly rate. This put me up around 47k and maybe a little more with overtime. So instead of saving now for the debt, we stopped and started saving for the house. Just put the minimal in all the student loans. Also I did fix up myself my old 86 Nissan, and so we had 2 cars now. This was good so that my wife could stay home more days and rest and go out if needed.Jan 2015 - So we start looking for a home with a realtor, though Im not sure why. We did all the work looking through homes and all he did was just set up the times to go look at them. We went out about 5 Saturdays and looked at about 6 homes each time. We would find one we really liked in our price range but then someone else would get it. Or there were ones we liked and werent under contract, but they werent willing to negotiate down in price. Then one day I found this perfect house randomly on a website, for sale by owner. I drive by and theres not even a for sale sign on it so I have my realtor talk to him and we negotiated an offer for 219k. It was a high amount for what is usually considered reasonable by this sub, but I knew I was going to be making more money soon and with our current budget, paying that mortgage wasnt that much more than our rent. April 2015- We Closed on the house, the seller to pay all the closing costs, we even got a home warranty in there for free. We had only enough cash for 10 down, and I accepted that since the PMI wasnt much with my credit score. And I was able to get 3.75 interest on the house with no points, which was great. I spent 80 on a moving truck and did it all ourselves. May 2015 - We started putting that extra money back towards the debt again, though obviously less than before. And my wife had stopped working around here, so we lost that extra 800 a month. July 2015 - Baby born! This threw a big cost at us, since my works health insurance deductible was at 5000. I had some of that in my HSA, but 4k or more came out of my pocket. Plus all the other expenses that come with a baby,It was a stretch but not too bad. Our good budgeting helped immensely.August 2015 - The guy above my position was fired because he was horrible at his job and I was doing all the work for him. They then promoted me to his position and pushed me up to 55k a year salary. No more overtime, which sucked because it had really been helping us out. But I did get a bonus if the year was good. Jan 2016 - I made the last payment to the student loans. I got paid an extra paycheck and I got a bonus and that was enough to finish it off for good. It was the greatest feeling, like Im free! And I found out we are having another baby! Another 5k to pay, hah. So moral of the long story, you can do it on a reasonable salary. You find the cheapest place to live that you can, and you put everything to your debt. Sell things, work extra hours, do whatever you can to get it gone ASAP. Live as cheaply as possible, and its a minute by minute decision. You dont need to spend 2 on a soda when water is free. You dont need to buy a new car when it wont cost that much to fix your old one. Be determined and it can work. I left alot out because this is already too long, especially some specifics, feel free to ask and Ill try to reply. Edit: Yes I agree title is misleading on having no debt, I owe 190k on my house still which is debt. Edit 2 : You can believe what you like, but our wedding money was around 2k. So we are talking about 30 months, which is 60k of money at the average rate of 2k a month. Sometimes more and sometimes less. And anything else I could get my hands on went to the debt. So this is definitely possible to do saying I paid off the 43k and put down 21k on the house in the 30 months time frame. I dont print money in my office, obviously there are other things that help like tax returns, bonuses, Christmas gifts, some odd jobs, and sold some car parts. All things that are fortunate to have, but something most people use for things other than debt. I know not everyone is as well off as even I was, but I want people to know its possible to get out of the hole if you work at it. Every situation is different. The whole point is GET OUT OF DEBT BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.  <response>: Debt freebought a houseRiiight 