<prompt> Human: Hey Guys,I am in a bit of a financial bind and am not sure what to do. I created this throwaway because I am pretty embarrassed. I live with my wife and two young children and make 65,000 a year. My Bills currently are: Bill Cost------Car 289Car Insurance for two cars 125Att for 2 cell phones, cable, internet 300Mortgage 1517Sallie Mae 607Nicor 20Comed 130Home Depot 25Chase CC 25Sears 160Amex 160Lending Club 475Health Insurance 550For a total of 4383 and my take home pay is about 4200. This does not show about 5 medical bills for a total of about 3000 or my water, sewer and recycling bills that are only every three months.If I just stop paying the credit cards and lending club I would save 845 a month. I have the potential to move to a new job and make 72,500. This would give me enough to live on, but my credit would be shot. My other option is bankruptcy, but I really wanted to avoid that. Any other ideas? Edit: Updated bills to be a little more clear. Assistant: OK dude, first you dont get gold plated TVCableInternetCell phone plan anymore. This is an emergency. So, turn all that off now. Make calls on Starbucks Wifi, read books from the library and that should save you 300. You have a dog? How much would you say you spend on it every month? Feels very optional. Any chance you could tell a siblingparent you are in a jam and need them to watch fido for a few months? If youre carrying anything other than min insurance on your cars, stop. Theres no reason you need two cars if your wife isnt working. I recommend getting rid of the lease and milking your beater for several more monthsyear. If this is just completely unimaginable from your perspective, sell the beater, and take whatever you get from it and kill that HD card or Chase card. Do you have an emergency fund? How much? Do you have any retirement savings? How much? What type of account?That health insurance plan looks like an unsubsidized plan? Details? How much are you spending on groceries? As Dave Ramsey says, are you eating rice and beans and beans and rice yet or could you clip coupons, stop buying Coca Cola, Coffee, Ice Cream, etc. and build some space in that spending area? Without outing yourself, what region of the country are you living in? Its about to fall meaning you probably could go without heating or AC for the next few months. Turn off that shit, open some windows, and save on that electric bill until it gets ridiculous in November.I think this is enough for now. Well talk more.Human: The Att stuff is under contract.I have a dog and I buy the food in bulk so her cost is around 75ish a month. She is a large dog not exactly something that is easy for someone else to take on. She is part of the family.Cars are lowest insurance I can get.Cant drop a lease until it is over. No emergency fund, I do have 5k in retirement that I will get if I switch jobs which is the way I am leaning.The plan is unsubsidized.My guess is 125 a week on groceries. I dont do the grocery shopping.I live in the Chicago area. JulyAugust are really the only bad electric months and those are almost done.  <response>: Look man...65K a year is not a terrible salary. Its above average. Tons of people make due and even thrive on even less. So, this says to me you have a LOT of optional spending you arent willing to view as optional.As I see it, you dont have 75 bucksmonth to spend on a dog. You made other spending a priority and now you dont have the option of a dog available to you.I didnt see any excuse about saving the beater so I imagine youre going to remove that from your liability insurance tomorrow. Put it in storage status until you can sell it. List it on craigslist tomorrow. Thatll clear up 50 bucks or so from your insurance bill. That 50 goes to your HD or Chase card whichever has the smaller balance until its paid off. Whatever you get for the car becomes your emergency fund. And by emergency I dont mean, your member of the family got hit by a car and now needs emergency surgery. I mean, the baby is sick or you have to make an insurance deductible.Call ATT tomorrow and tell them to get fucked and you dont have any money to pay for cable and fancy internet. Tell them youre willing to drop down to data only or youre walking away. Groceries: go look in your pantry. Is there a single thing in there that counts as snack food? Cookies? Crackers? Soda? Is there anything super-bougie like non-gmo, organic, whole foods brand kombucha? If so, stop buying that shit. I dont think 125 is a lot of money per week for a family on food but youre going to win this game at the margins. If you can save 20 bucks a week by not buying cheese-its and pringles, then you can honestly say youve saved enough to be able to pay for your member of the family. Oh and you dont have the luxury of not being involved with grocery shopping decisions anymore. Youre contemplating bankruptcy. Lean the fuck in. Oh...how often do you eat out? You ARE packing your lunch right?Ultimately dude, youre dying a death by a thousand cuts. 75 bucks a month for your family member, 50 bucks extra to insurance two cars instead of one, 80 bucks a month for snack or fancy food in the house, god knows how much for that non-dischargeable car lease spilled milk but dont do that again, 300 a month for completely optional gold-plated cablephoneinternet subscriptions. Turn that thermostat off or low in the winter and wear sweaters when it gets cold out to keep that heat bill down. If you fix all those things above, youre looking at 500 bucks a month back in the black.Win this game 50 bucks at a time. The aggregated effect of all this optional spending is whats sinking you. Start being the little dutch boy and plugging holes in your dam. 