My wife and I got married out of college, and we have some crazy debt.

~45000 in student loans
~11000 for her car
~-3000 in an unsecured loan
so, 59000 in total debt.

separating the student loans out, about $10,000 are mine.

She didn't keep very good records and hates money so I don't know what the rate is on the car loan, all I know is that there are 55 payments left.

Anyone have a good strategy to eliminate this debt? We've got a budget and we're sticking to it, and we're both working full-time. We may also need a second car in the near future, which will be an added expense.

Currently my strategy is this:
1. Pay off the unsecured loan ASAP. These payments then become part of the "car payment"
2a. Set aside a "car payment" in a different account so that I can have a down payment for less overall debt on the second car.
2b. Buy the second car.
3. Find out if we can make larger payments on her car w/out penalty, if so, do that.
4. If not, make extra payments on the new car.
5. Since wife is looking at going back to school, make only minimum payments on her loans since they'll go back into deferrment.
6. Once a car is paid off that payment goes towards my loans.
7. That payment goes towards my wife's loans once mine are paid off.
8. That payment will then go into a savings account until we have roughly 3 months income.
9. Then we get to invest.

Please pick my strategy apart, the sooner I'm out of debt the happier we'll be. Also, if you know any good ways we could make some extra money that would be helpful too.

How about getting rid of that car? I would sell it and then just buy a cheap beat-up car to get you around until you get your finances under control.

It sounds like you've got a good eye for keeping everything under control, and you appear to have a strategy of snowballing your debts - clearing the lowest first to make room for repayments on larger amounts.

However, one thing I'd take into consideration is which debt has the highest interest rate - for example, if the car loan, and you can pay it off faster, then you'd be saving more money in the long term.

2c.

I totallyi agree with you Brian..to pay off the debt with the highest interest rate. I still can’t believe that people get penallized for NOT getting into debt.

UPDATE
DEBT DECREASE

8978.33 car loan 7.99 rate
3075.20 Unsecured loan 8.9 rate
17420.06 Wife's student loans
10045 My student loans

So...pay off your unsecured loan, then wipe out the car debt?

that's the general strategy we're going with

any clue how we may be able to supplement our income to pay this off faster? Not looking to get rich quick, but an extra $20-$50 a month would work wonders for us.

Mark, what skills do you have? Aactually, PM me instead - shouldn't be hard to find something simple and easy you can do that wouldn't take a lot of time but still get you some cash. Just regular work, no schemes.

Tried selling stuff on eBay? You could go visit garage sales & pick up some stuff cheap & sell on eBay. Nothing too intensive, but it will get you the extra $20-50 a month pretty easily.

How much time do you have per week? There are other things you could do, but they take a bit more time..

Its an idea to also pay just a little bit more than the minimum payment on your loans - if you can afford an extra $10 per month, at least this is decreasing your principle & not just your interest.