<prompt> Human: I love seeing these posts on rpersonalfinance as theyve inspired me over the past couple years and I finally get to post one of my own!I started a throwaway account because Id like to share a little bit more personal detail about my situation. Here it goes:29 years old. Married. Two kids born in 08 and 10. Graduated in 2011 in Construction Management with 27k in student loans. I was working in an internship that rolled into a full-time job at 45kyear after I graduated. My wife and I both fell into the trap of thinking We deserve some sort of reward for all the hard work weve done and went out and got two cars totaling 20k in loans.A few months later we saw the light after sitting down and putting a budget together to see when we could realistically have a good down payment for a home. We were saving 300 while making the minimum payments on all of our debt. A down payment seemed impossibly far away.One thing led to another and over the next 19-20 months we sold both cars and replaced them with a beater that I bought for 1 from my father-in-law, and a 3000 car that we bought from my wifes grandmother.After a year at my job I got a promotion and a raise to 55kyear and by then we were aggressively paying off our debt. Just this past March I got another raise to 62kyear and a 6k bonus that helped push us to make our last lump sum payment towards our student loan debt What Im actually most proud of is that weve cut our monthly expenses down from 3200mo to 2100mo while our income has increased dramatically.Were now saving 1800mo towards an emergency fund and a down payment on a house as our two bedroomtwo bath apartment is feeling a little small as our kids get older and bigger.Sorry for the wall o text. Like I sad at the beginning, I hope my experience can help and inspire someone else to keep pushing. My wife and I havent been on any vacations, birthdays and Christmas are on the cheap, and it hasnt been very fun but definitely rewarding in the end.  <response>: Congratulations on getting on the right track! With no more debt, low expenses, and your recent raises, youll see your net worth increase pretty quickly! 