<prompt> Human: My Wife is in the military and her paybenefits have served us well. We fell into the credit card trap early and made some silly decisions regarding cars, and now were flailing. My Wife has decided when her enlistment is up September 2019, shed like to transfer to reserves. Well still be getting a small paycheck from the military, and of course she will find work once shes off Active Duty, but I want to be as stable as possible to account for any lag between leaving active duty and starting a new job in the civilian world. Our budget is as follows:Monthly Earnings AFTER Taxes: 5,842Monthly Expenses:- Daycare: 786- Rent: 1465- Water: 180- Insurance: 172- Gas: 130- Groceries: 400- Credit Card 1: 100 monthly minimum; 2,500 limit- Credit Card 2: 50 monthly minimum; 2000 limit- Entertainment: 40- Credit Card 3: 25 monthly minimum; 500 limit- Car 1: 450 3 years left- Car 2: 569 Lease. 3 years left- Credit Card 4: 158 monthly minimum; 5,800 limit- Electric: 180- CableInternet: 117 Locked at this price til June 2018. Getting rid of cable after that, leaving only internet- Credit Card 5: 115 monthly minimum; 5000 limit- Credit Card 6: 115 monthly minimum; 5000 limit- Credit Card 7: 25 monthly minimum; 500 limit- Cell phones: 206Total after expenses: 559All varying expenses electric, water, etc. have been averaged. All credit cards except Credit Card 2 are maxed with high interest rates. We also have no savings. Every other month we dont have a water bill.I work for a law firm and get not so great pay, but soon I will be getting hopefully around 2,500 per month in bonus pay based on deals Ill be working, but I havent included that above as I havent started getting them yet and some months will be lower and some will be higher. I am also a student with around 20k in debt so far and am about halfway through my Bachelors, so itll be another 2-3 years before I have to start paying on those.I am very financially illiterate Im finding. I have this narrow view of money where I see money coming in and going out and we have X dollars to get us to payday. I budget in a note on my phone where I have all of our expenses and basically take a calculator to our bank balance every couple of days to keep track of money coming and going. I feel so silly even typing this. I have a 3 year old son and I cant figure out how to work my own money. I dont expect to be a millionaire by 2019, and I dont even expect to be 100 stable by then, but I need us to be in a much better place so that we arent pinching pennies anymore and my Wife can get off Active Duty like shes been wanting to for years. Ill read any book or listen to any podcast or whatever it is to understand. Any help would be immensely appreciated.  <response>: Well, congrats for you looking to educate yourself and get control of this. Wow, 7 credit cards. Are you still using these cards and there is additional monthly charges beyond what you listed? You really need to chop up these cards and stop adding to them. Make paying off the cards a top priority since they usually come with some harsh interest rates. Start with the highest rate ones first. Once those cards are paid off, you should start seeing an acceleration towards getting rid of all debt.Beyond that, put yourself in crisis mode and cut your expenses to the absolute minimum. Consider what you would do if you lost your job and make that a starting point of being frugal. Eat cheap and limit any type of entertainment for a while until you can get these debts under control. Not only will it help you pay things down faster, but you will also be setting some habits that will be valuable for a lifetime. Your utilities are around 500month. There is definitely room to suffer a bit there and save some money as well.Listen to the podcasts of Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard. A different approach for each of them, but lots of great financial discussion to help you educate yourself on finances. 