My payments are about $100 a month..but i'm not really getting anywhere. After a year of the minimum payments (I have two separate ones) it hardly made a dent..I do happen to basically live pay check to pay check though. not a large savings at this point. only a couple grand. I'm 28 and also bought my first house last year. (the down payment was made with inheritance money)

Even though we still live about pay check to paycheck.. I can work overtime usually and continue to do so. is it worth to pinch and save to pay off a little extra on student loans or would you just pay the bare minimum? if i pay extra right now it's going to kind of hurt a little

I don't know what your repayment schedule requires you to do, I mean can you add a few dollars to that student loans payment or would you have to add another $100 to it each payment? All I can tell you is to make sure you're always employed until this thing is paid of because if you don't and you're strapped and it falls into default then you'd be paying a lot more and for 30 years or more. I think buying at house at 27 was a mistake, but everyone looks backwards later on. You should have paid off your student loans first, had renters, had a second job or something, and what if you have kids?

Sounds like it's time 2nd job, and stop having kids. You have a "cheap" satellite plan, but you still have satellite. What's that cost a year, $800-$1000? You have "cheap" cell phone plans, but you still have cell phones. Ridiculous in my mind to have luxuries, yes they are luxuries, when you're living paycheck to paycheck with 4 kids. In other words, you need to get your priorities in order.

Who knows what your car situation is. Do you both have car payments? If so, sell them and buy a couple of beaters with cash.

You should save $1000 if you don't already have it for extreme emergencies: Water heater breaks, car breaks down, etc.

After that you need to start paying off your debts. Pay them off from the smallest debt to the largest. This will get you quick "wins", and will motivate you to keep going.

You have a spending and possibly income problem. Hard to say on the 2nd one since we don't know what your income is.

You need to get your spending in order. Look very carefully at what you are spending your money on and start making cuts. You are in a situation that if one of you becomes unemployed or can't work you are screwed. Pay off as much debt as you can as fast as you can.

you should have used that inherited money to get out of debt - those school loans saty with you until death - they will even be deducted from soc sec pmts if not paid off before you retire

Pay extra and work all the overtime you can get. If you aren't getting the overtime, get a second job.