<prompt> Human: Just wanted to give you guys a quick update to this post: First of all thank you all so, so much for the help and advice you gave me yesterday. The thread really blew up so I apologize that I couldnt reply to everyone. You guys told me exactly what I needed to hear to stop living in fantasy-land and seriously take a look at my budgetexpenses. I didnt really think we were that bad off. Well looking at it without the rose-colored glasses, I can absolutely see that we are heading down the path to bankruptcy if something doesnt change and soon. I think its safe to say we have both been idiots about this, I havent paid nearly as much as I should have to where our money is actually going and neither has my husband. We are both going to sit down every pay day and go through the budget together.My husband and I spent a few hours looking over everything to figure out where to go from here. I calculated his and my income for the last 6 months and was surprised to find that we actually make more than I initially thought. My husband having a fluctuating income puts him on average at 3500mo and I am actually closer to 2200mo, so 5800 vs the 4800 I thought. This was the average for the last 6 months. My income is pretty much consistent, my husbands is the one that fluctuates, but it usually only fluctuates by a few hundred dollars, in the last 3 months his income has been Nov: 3200, Dec: 3500, Jan: 4200 he gets paid weekly, so this is so much higher becuase we had 5 fridays in Jan.We heard back from the credit union we talked to about a loan, but they were only able to give us a personal loan for 7,000. We went to the actual bank and spoke directly with a lender who said they may be able to give us a home-equity loan for the full 17,000 since there is more collatoral if we default on the payments, and we decided to start the process of looking into that, the loan officer was very optimistic that we would be approved for this, but it will be a few days until we know for sure. If we are approved our combined payments would drop us down to 280 a month and the interest rate would be much, much lower than what we are paying right now, at 7. The loan would be for 5 years. We could have looked at rolling our cars and my husbands loan into those payments as well, but both our car loans interest rates are at or lower than that. My car is 3.25 paid in 5 years, and my husband is 7 but his car loan is paid in 4 years anyway. Not to mention that I dont believe we have enough equity to get a big enough loan for that.We have also dropped our cableinternet bill by over 100mo, we were actually paying around 230 and are still looking at other carriers for lower rates. Our cell phone bill is being dropped by 40mo. I had already started looking into energy efficiency before all this happened, so our thermostat has been set to 68, 65 when we arent home, for the last few weeks, well see what impact it has on our next bill. A lot of you were surprised that it was so high, but we live in a fairly large house and its -14 outside right now where we live which is the most likely reason. All of our appliances are engergy efficient appliances as well. I have also been better at making sure everything, lights, tv, etc. is turned off unless we are actually in the room and Im going to start writing a grocery list and bringing a calculator so we can try and eliminate 100 off our monthly grocery bill. Our monthly gas bill for our cars is actually lower than I initially thought as well, its more around 240 than 300As far as budgeting our expenses I have started looking into some of the websites you guys mentioned like YNAB, etc and we are reading the Total Money Makeover together right now so we can get everything in line.I would like some advice on what to do if the loan we applied for gets approved. If that happens and with the changes we have made by eliminating some of our other expenses, we will have an extra 500-700 each month based on the lowest income my husband typically brings in, if he has a better week obviously any extra will go towards that debt, what would be the best thing to start paying more on? We still have my husbands old loan, which I found out more information on, and it is a lot worse than I initially thought. My husband is a high-end mechanic and has to have certain tools to do his job, unfortunately those tools are expensive and the loan he has is actually way more than I thought. The payments are closer to 540mo on that loan and the balance is 19,000 with 6 interest rate, it should be paid off in around 5 years... Our actual income explains why we have been able to afford this up to this point, we have both talked about this and agree that though he needs tools for work this amount is entirely excessive. Hes going to close the accounts so he cant charge anymore and isnt going to buy any additional tools unless he can pay for it up front. We also have my husbands car loan which has a balance of 22,445.75 and payments are 458.29mo and interest at 7, my car loan which is 15,447.55, payments are 282, interest is 3.25. We are also getting 2800 back from our tax return this year, 1500 of which is going towards our emergency funds.Again, thank you all for the support and help. I feel like we were close to drowning and you guys threw us a life raft. We just have to execute now and get things in line, even if our loan isnt approved we are going to get this done, it just might take a little longer than we want. I would attach a copy of our budget, but I dont know how to attach an excel sheet.Assistant: Let me tell you this: Get the YNAB free trial and use it for a month. If you think it will help you, like it, and you think you will use it, I will gift you a copy via Steam. Use it for a whole month first to make sure its worth it to you. I have a number of keys I bought a while back but want to make sure it will get used properly. Human: Downloading now! :-  <response>: I highly recommend watching the webinars, its hard to fully use the software without it. PM me in a month if you want a key : 