I had $25,000 student loan and my credit card company snuck in unauthorized credit card limit increases to the tune of $11,000 and other debt.
There were some months, when I’d skip payments on either my loan or credit card debt or some other debt, so I could focus on the principle of one of my debts, expecially if it meant that I’d pay off a debt.
I did that with the full recognition that, it might have cost me some interest, but I was able to then take the payments I was making on a now-paid-off-debt and refocus that money on some other debt.
No excuses.
If she had paid $60 more per month, she would now owe about $15,000 and would have the debt paid off in about 8 and a half more years. All she had to do was go out to eat 2 or 3 less times a month or skip that vacation or buy a used car instead of a new one or get rid of the premium movie package on the cable bill, etc. Or do more than one of the above and have it already paid off.
The problem is, these people think they are entitled to everything they want just because they want it. I have a friend who has two grown step-daughters that hardly ever work, jump from guy to guy and are off and on some sort of government subsidy all the time. He was telling one of them about he and their mom going on vacation. They were complaining about how they hadn't been on a vacation in a while. His first comment was "A vacation from what?" Then told me how they had cell phones and cable and whined because they couldn't afford a new car payment. They expected everything he had, but didn't notice that he worked every day for it.