<prompt> Human: So long story short, I got the CSR card when it first came out almost a year ago and it has been fantastic. I had been using it fairly responsibly and was able to take several trips solely on the rewards points. It has been great, and even after taking these trips, I was still able to get my balance to 0 each month and have not paid any interest until recently. Fast forward awhile, I found myself single and beginning to jump back into the dating world and ended up racking up a balance more and more each month and for the first time, I have been charged an interest charge I had been paying the balance off in full each month, or at the very least paying off enough of the balance that I would never be charged interest. Now, I am still paying large chunks of the balance each month--paying close to 2000-2,500 each month on the balance each month but also adding sometimes 3,000 to the balance. Overall, Im now adding to the balance each month instead of reducing. I use the CC for everything so when I get paid, the cash just piles up and I use that cash to pay off a good portion of the card. Like I said, this has been working beautifully for a long time but now I am officially not able to pay off the majority of it. Spare me the lecture on the dangers of cc usage. I am fully aware of my mistake :So my question is, how should I go about getting the balance back to 0 each month? Im about 5,200 in the hole and I have close to 2,000 cash in my checking. The minimum payment coming up tomorrow is 75. I could do what Ive been doing and just use every dime I have in my checking to pay off a large chunk of the balance, but then I am left without cash which is normally fine and it forces me to keep using the CC and risk adding more to it each month instead of reducing it little-by-little like I had been. Should I just take the interest hit, not use all the cash in my account, only pay the minimum payment, and switch back over to using just cash? If I switch over to just using the cash I have in my checking, then I will have stopped using the CC, and then I can work on reducing the balance each month rather than both adding to it with expenses and reducing it with payments and risk added the sum to the balance. This way, I will be certain that the balance will keep reducing instead of adding. However, this means I will take a hit and have to pay the interest that I will suddenly be charged since I would only be making minimum payment instead of paying off enough of the balance to where I wont be charged.I was making about 4,000 per month, but now my health insurance has kicked in and now Im takign home close to 3,200 each month.Last two months, my expenses totaled 8,600, and my income was 8,100. My goal now from here on out is to get my expenses lower than my income need to start expecting the women to pay for the date sometimes! They never offer, but thats a discussion for another subreddit; however, in the meantime, what is the best course of action to get this balance to 0? Should I JUST lower my expenses and continue using the card and have it slowly reduce the balance over the course of a few months? Or should I switch over to using the debit card? I should also note that I am not able to build a savings fund up anymore like I used to and so this balance is preventing me from working on that.  <response>: Stop going out on expensive dates.Or just stop dating. 