<prompt> Human: I know this may seem a bit crazy to have just now broken that barrier, and in the end we still spent far too much as a whole... But the fact that there is no debt is a massive, massive victory that we have never accomplished before, and we still have a for our current situation decent amount left in savings. If youd have told me this would be my future even a year ago, Id never have believed we would get our heads above water. For anyone who doesnt think they can, KEEP TRYING. Never give up. Dont get yourself down. We all slip, like with my past food addiction I never succeeded until I stopped beating myself up about mistakes. We had like 70k in debt, and are on a direct track for that to disappear. We even have cards we havent been able to close with a decent amount of credit, but we did not touch once this season. Compared to a few years ago where every single card was maxed out continuously, and where available credit was like a sign saying free money! I could not be happier. Thats all. I just needed to say this out loud, both as a tooting of my own horn, but also to solidify it for me and remind me if I struggle. I dont post here like ever, but this sub has made a difference. If it werent for Reddit, I may never have gotten a good consolidation loan. So thanks. Have an awesome new year. e: Oh holy night, now I understand RIP my inbox comments, but couldnt be happier.Thanks to everyone who replied, it means the world! For those with questions I do intend to get back to you, and for those posting words of encouragement, thank you so much for that. One question Ive gotten a lot is how we did it. That was the part that surprised us. We have a house with minimal equity, which helped a small amount with using that equity to pay down a fraction of our debt, but it was the chunk we needed to get the okay on our consolidation loan and banks love to have all of your accounts. Combined that with our reasonable income Im on disability but my wife makes a high 5 figure salary so it gave us a good footing and the fact that we have not missed a minimum bill payment and it provided us the leverage we desperately needed. I can say that one of the best things you can have under your belt is to be able to go to the bank with a positive payment history. Too many late payments really mess with your credit score, so even if you can only just make the minimum payment, do that! Cutting costs and trying to be more pragmatic is the other huge step that we needed to make. I worked hard to get my health in shape and doing that made my propensity for impulse and worthless spending easier to control. It may sound cliche, but I remember starting to change when Winter Soldier came out, I realized I had about 20k in debt id racked up on a card and had been putting off telling my wife about it every time she asked for a balance. My days were absolutely miserable. I was trying with all my power to avoid telling her, and finally admitting it was hard as hell, but we made it through it. It is possible to do it, because if someone who has as much of an addiction to buying useless shit as I do can, its possible for anyone else. Like quitting smoking or losing weight, you very well may stumble or even fail. Thats natural. Do not let that get you down, please dont. We are human and we are all fucked up in our own unique ways, getting out of debt is a very weird and challenging part of life, it may feel like a slog it sure has for years and you may get to the ground floor and fail again this is not our first rodeo with consolidation loans but if you persist, you may just be able to succeed. Again, its cliche but if you fall, pick yourself up again and get back into the fray. Dont let debt win. Its not worth living your life running to try and play catch-up. That new thing you must have feels that way for a very short time after you buy it, and that feeling goes away. And when its gone the only solution is to buy more and more, but being debt free and being able to buy that cool thing without having to go insane figuring out how youll ever pay it off is way fucking better.Thank you all, again. Youve fucking MADE my Christmas and New Year.  <response>: Well done!Tip for others: If the only way you can afford Christmas presents is to put them on a credit card and make payments, you shouldnt be buying Christmas presents. Find other ways to enjoy the holiday. Make something, play a special game with your children, anything besides going into debt. 