<prompt> Human: Short personal history lesson: While in the last two years of my degree I became homeless, which resulted in some damage to my finances. I have accumulated credit card debt totaling to about 7k, I have missed some of their payments, though not every month. I owe my friend 1400, my vehicle needs brakes and tires, and I also have 60k in student loans. Despite some of this, I have now graduated and secured a job. My salary is 72k, before taxes, and I reside in PA. My rent is 600 - this includes electric, trashwatersewer, internet, etc. My car payment is 235, insurance is 105. HealthDentalVision insurances are 160. 401k contribution will be 6. I know a have a bit of a hole to dig myself out of, and Ive neglected quite a few things. What is the best way to tackle this? I want to save money, but I also want to get out of debt as quickly as I can.  <response>: First thing I would do is to make the minimum payments on your credit cardsmake sure that everything is current and up to date including any fees that have potentially been incurred. You mention that you owe money to a friend, does this have a time frame on which it needs to be repaid? At the risk of potentially damaging the friendship of someone who was kind of enough to help you during a tough time I would highly prioritize paying them back ASAP or setting up a payment plan of xs per month or week. I would then save up 1k in a savings account which would help to pay for any sort of sudden costs and will keep you from spending more money with credit cards. How much life is left on your brakes and tires? I remember when I was in school I was able to take my car to a trade school which taught auto maintenance to students and they worked on my car and fixed it up for cost of the parts and I wasnt charged any labor fees. Try and look around and see if there is something like that in your area. After that I would begin putting as much money towards paying down your credit card debt and once that is down to 0 you can begin paying towards your student loans after you up your emergency fund to be roughly 3-6 months of living expenses. Having the emergency fund will help you from potentially being in another situation where you rack up tons of CC debt. 