<prompt> Human: Between myself, my wife, and some general ignorancebad decisionsone extremely unlucky year, we have around 140,000 in student loan debt. Its pretty bad.Shes employed making around 27k after taxes, Im employed making an embarrassing 16k. Our shit is definitely not together.If I go the slow route, I can try to advance in my social services career and in a couple years try for a job making around 30k. If I gamble big, I can go back to school for my masters, wrack up even more student loan debt, and possibly start going into a career making 40k - 50k.The debt is the biggest thing weighing us down. Wed love to start moving forward and start a family, but at this point I just dont think we can afford it. Luckily, the cost of living in our area is pretty low, but due to some genetic stuff we dont want to have to wait 10 years to have kids. It kills me to think that we wouldnt be able to support a child and ourselves - to say nothing of the kind of life we want to provide for a kid. We both went to college and did fairly well, but were still just holding on by our fingernails out here in the real world.Were both on Income Based Repayment of our loans, but were also trying to pay them down whenever we can. Weve done the new Special Consolidation thing and thats helped out, but short of taking a huge risk on a career change or going back to school, Im not sure what I can do - if anything.I realize our situation could be worse. Between us, we have less than 1,000 credit card debt, were fairly frugal regarding groceries and luxury items. We both have excellent credit and buy used whenever we can. But I still feel a burning need to get my finances in order. I just have no idea where to start.edit - Also, with anything extra I have ha!, Id like to start looking into investment for retirement. I missed the boat on understanding this stage of my life and I want to get shit together for the next stage.  <response>: downvote me all you want, but the real thing is that you need to make more than 16K per year. youre basically making minimum wage. 