<prompt> Human: Previous thread is here for more context if needed: Between my wife and I, we have 9 open credit cards with approximately 33k in debt Min due is 1210mo. We have been cutting up the cards, cancelling subscriptions and tightening up our budget, but we barely make more than what we owe for bills not even including food, gas, etc. As it currently stands, we dont have enough income to pay off more than the minimum...and were struggling to even do that. I have 32,000 in an inactive former employer 401k. If I take the cash minus 30 penalty taxes Id be able to pay off about 22k on the CC debt...and if I keep paying the 1200mo were already paying we could have the rest of our debit paid off in 11 months or so. Then I could bump my contributions to my current 401k to 15-20 its 6 now, just enough to get the full benefit of employer match for a year or two to try to build it back up. Thoughts? Am I stupid to do this? Well, stupid...er than getting myself into this predicament in the first place  <response>: If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say they were going to increase the contributions to their retirement accounts after they paid off the debt, Id have a pretty massive stack of nickels. As it turns out, virtually none of them have followed through on it. 