<prompt> Human: Today was payday, and I placed the final payment on my nightmare credit card. For years I carried around a maxed credit card of 25k! How awful that feeling was. Sleepless nights, stress, worry, and my self esteem took a big hit. A year ago my wife left me, and I decided to make a change about who I am: physically, emotionally, spiritually and financially. I stumbled across Dave Ramseys Financial Peace University, and took to it. I started the class in May of last year, and you can see the affect it had on my debt in the attached graph. And though I stick to the steps Dave Ramsey laid out for getting out of debt, its my daily visit to rpersonalfinance that kept me excited and motivated! Now Im looking forward to building my emergency fund, and investing. What a wonderful foundation this is to start out this next stage of my life. Thank you, all! This is a wonderful community!Biggest lessons Ive learned:Have a good offense. I switched jobs and got a pay increase of about 250 150 i cant math. I went from 35k to 85k. Due to some hard times, I had to accept a job as a graphic designer paying 35k while I tried to sort out my marriage. Im now an Art Director in the video game industry making 85k in the Southern California area.Have a good defense. I made my budget and I stuck to it. Overall I placed around 60 of my take home towards debt. When my budget got a little wonky around September, I switched to the envelope system for foodentertainment. The envelope system works!Always be learning. The Total Money Makeover was my first financial book. Since then Ive read The Millionaire Next Door and The Bogleheads Guide to Investing. I see how the knowledge I gain at this moment can drastically change my future for the positive! Im soaking it up!EditJust got off the phone with visa. I officially closed my account! 12 years of chains, broken!Edit 2Someone was requesting my monthly budget. Here ya go!Assistant: Mind me asking how you got such a huge pay increase with a new job? Howd you find such a step up?Human: Yeah, sorry, my math was bad on that. What I meant to say was I was compensated 250 as much as my last job. So 35k to 85k. I moved out to Southern California for a job as a concept artist in the video game industry at 55k. The studio ended up closing 4 months in, and my wife left for another guy. So I was jobless, without a spouse, and just got whatever I could in order to stay afloat. That was a graphic design position for 35k ouch!. I hadnt been paid that little since graduating 12 years ago! Im 31 now I was blessed with an Art Directing position in the video game industry where Im now paid 85k. All in all, I put about 60 of my take home pay towards debt. Im hoping I can now start to live off a little more than canned tuna and peanut butter. ;Assistant: What did you eat for those 8 months??Human: Eggs for breakfast, tuna for lunch, a couple chicken strips for dinner with cornasparagus.Assistant: Seriously tuna every day? Human: yep  <response>: No mercury issues? 