<prompt> Human: Hi all, I need some advice on my situation, things feel very bleak. First some background: I have a good job as a software engineer and have a 90k salary in California before taxes. The problem is, my monthly expenses are killing me and I have been in a cycle of debt and overdraft for months now and dont know what to do. The problem is this: I am always short on covering bills and payments and this ends up overdrawing my account. I get charged a courtesy pay fee for each payment that occurs while my account is overdrawn. Usually my account is somewhere in -400-500 by the time my paycheck gets deposited At that point, I am already down by that much and become short again. The cycle keeps repeating. My biggest monthly expenses are: Rent Car payment insurance Student loans 1 personal rates 3-6 Credit Card payments 3 with rates 11-12 Of course I have other expenses: gaselectric, internet, phone bill, mattress I am financing, car gas, gym, and groceries I have been terrible at budgeting and I spend money I dont have. I am not sure what I am supposed to do at this point, if anything I feel extremely trapped by own actions. Now I am approaching similar times while being short again for upcoming payments. How do I break this cycle? I dont have anything to spend on groceries and barely enough for gas after these payments. Everything feels so difficult and it has made me reclusive. I need my car because my job is 20 miles away and there isnt viable public transportation there. I am locked into my apartment until next April. I just feel lost. I feel like if I can just break the cycle once, then I will be ok. I feel like I cant even start this chart or any plans proposed on this sub because I never have anything left to work with: Any advice will be appreciated. If you need clarification or more information, please do not hesitate to ask. Thanks EDIT: Here is the numerical breakdown per month. Typing this out hurts.Take-home per month: 4506.18 Rent: 1525 Car: 494 27k left Car Insurance: 150 Student Loan: 322 21.7k left Credit Cards: 230 100 for two, 30 for the other - all are maxed, 10k total Personal Loan: 68 Mattress: 135 1140 left Gym: 40 Internet: 85 Electricity: 45 Cell Phone: 90 Car Gas: 120 Groceries: 120 I am supposed to have about 1k left over, but each overdraw fee is 27.50 and those add up like crazy. Assistant: Why dont you start by listing out numerical values for all of your expenses as well as your take home pay?Human: I just added itAssistant: Whats your rent payment? Edit: Never mind its up there. So you have roughly 3400 in expenses, where is the other 1100 going? Even if youre overdrawn by 500 you should have like 600 left at the end of the month. Human: each overdraw adds -27.50, the rest gets spent probably on alcohol and outside food when I forget lunchbreakfast, miscellaneous. also 40 a week for therapy for the last 4 weeks. but each time I have to pay for those things, I dont have enough in my account and it triggers a courtesy pay fee which adds the -27.50. For example, right now I have: 1627 in my checking, and after payments go through, I will be at -800.  <response>: So all you have to do is stop drinking and make your breakfast and lunch right? Paying all this money in overdraft fees doesnt make any sense. 