<prompt> Human: Hey rpersonalfinance, I am a 19 year old long time lurker on a throwaway account, and Ive come to you in my time of need. I was away on my first year of University and I have always known that my family has been in a pretty bad financial situation, but with the additional post-secondary expenses that came this year it became very evident just how serious and messed up our financial situation is. By adding so much burden to our financial situation with my studies, I feel an overwhelming responsibility to help organize our situation so that is why I am coming to you guys, seeking for guidance.Some background information. We are a family of 4. My mom used to work at a supermarket up until about 2 years ago when the supermarket closed down. Now she is in a local community college getting a sociology degree in hopes of becoming a social worker. Her program is a 12 month program, and she started this january and will end next january. Her program costs 13500, but unemployment paid 10000, and OSAP student assistance gave her a loan of 16700, 3500 of which she used to pay the rest of the tuition, 2200 my parents spent on expenses for the house paying bills, etc, and 11000 she has remaining in her bank which i told them to keep in a savings account and immediately pay it back to osap after her program is done. My father is an international medical graduate, who was a long time doctor in the middle east and came to canada in 2008. If you guys arent familiar to the path of getting your license to practice in Canada as an International medical graduate, pretty much the Medical Council of Canada has these exams you have to complete before you can practice. There are 3 , Evaluating Exam which allows you to take the next exam, The qualifying exam 1 allows you to practice in ontario and qualifying 2 exam allows you to practice as a doctor anywhere in canada. He has completed the evaluating exam, but now needs to complete the qualifying exam 1. The exam costs 1000, and we currently dont have the money for him to take it. He works right now on call as a care provider in homes for people affected with Brain injuries. In terms of income: My father is our only source of income. He receives on average since his work is on call 1200 from work. He also receives disability benefits since he has a hearing disability that average out to about 1200 monthly from Ontario Disability Support Prorgam. My parents also receive a child benefit we are two dependent children, im 19 and my sister is 14 from the government of about 240 and a trillium benefit of about 70 for a total of 310. This brings our average total monthly income to about 2710. Here are our expenses: We live in a subsidized town home which we pay monthly rent of 214. We pay our hydro bill bi-monthly, but monthly it is around 120. Our heating bill is around 100. Collectively we pay 175 on 4 cellphones. The insurance on our Van is 270 and gasoline for the van is 250. We are paying off a CITI financial loan at 240 a month. Groceries cost about 500 monthly. My father has debt on two credit cards. On his mastercard he owes 3500, and on his visa he owes 5000. He pays 250 monthly between them which is just over the minimum payment for both. My mother has debt on two credit cards as well. On her Visa, she has an outstanding balance of 13500, and 300 outstanding on her Hudsons Bay Credit Card. She also pays 250 monthly which is almost exactly equal to the minimum payment for both. My sister has braces that we pay 115 monthly for with 2550 outstanding on them. Our additional expenses sum up to an additional 300. This makes our average total monthly expenses around 2924. This means there is a deficit monthly of about 224. Our goals are too have enough outstanding money for my dad to be able to pay for his exams, so he can work as a doctor and for us to be free from our financial burdens. Our ideas to save more money is for my mom to find a part time job on the weekends in addition to her studies which would bring us an additional 500 a month. Also my dad could try and find another job and work two jobs while my mom is in school to help generate more income. Then hopefully when my mom is done school, if she finds a full time job, my dad can quit one of his jobs, continue to work at the other while studying and preparing for his exams. We feel like we can save money on gasoline monthly if we were to get a new smaller car, but we cannot afford one. With all of this information I am giving you guys, I hope that you guys can help me create a practical plan to lower our financial stress! What steps should we take in order to get ourselves in a better situation in order to allow my dad to complete his tests. Where, how and what can we save money on and is there something that we should be doing that we are not. Any advice is much appreciated. I am really sorry about the long post but I just want to get the best advice possible to help my family. Thanks again to all of you who have read it and I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say!  <response>: Do you think your dad is competent enough to pass the medical examine so that he could quickly find a much paying job? If so, it sounds like a no brainer to me to take 1000 out of your moms extra student loans to pay this.The key first is to make more money. Your expenses are already low and you dont have enough capital to effectively pay down the debts. Your whole family needs to focus on bringing in more income and Dad is the best prospect for this. 