<prompt> Human: I am having a really hard time seeing friends buying things, houses, going on lavish vacations etc while I struggle to fix my mistakes. What can I tell myself when I start to feel the need to keep up with the Joneses?  <response>: For me, going from 40k in credit card debt to zero credit card debt and 6 months emergency fund was a long journey, several years in the making plus a fortunate sale of my house for nearly double what I paid for it, but that was when I was nearly even again after 2-3 years of being diligent in my budgeting and paying down the debt. You have to look at the end game, the light at the end of the tunnel if you will. I know for YEARS I was feeling like every time I got a bonus from work, or made a bit of extra money on the side, or stayed true to my frugal budget and had money left over at the end of the month, it felt like a waste just throwing that money at the never ending black hole that was my credit card debt. But slowly and surely, it was decreasing and using the snowball method, I finally paid one of the 5 cards off. Then using that lack of interestminimum payment plus extra money to tackle the next card was a bit easier. Then the next card was easier and was paid down faster, until one day I went from the 40k to about 5k at which time I sold my house and immediately paid off the rest.Let me tell you, the feeling of being debt free minus mortgage and little left on car is an amazing feeling, even moreso coming from a mountain of high interest debt. 