My husband and I both come from poor families, but went to a fairly expensive college (which is where we met, freshman year). Aside from a few thousand dollars donated by my grandmother and a thousand or so a year that he managed to blackmail from his father, we were on our own to cover the cost. Both BSs were heavily subsidized by scholarships and grants, but of course loans made up the difference. His living expenses were covered by those loans, while I received $50 a week from my father in child support (we - my mother and father and me - went to court to have it switched from my mother to me).
We graduated with about $1000 of accumulated credit card debt (mostly from schoolbooks and other supplies), decent credit, and a little over $50,000 in student loans to pay back over periods ranging from 3 to 10 years. We had decent full time jobs in New Jersey (well distant from our parents, so unfortunately we couldn’t live at home if we wanted to), but no car or furniture, or anything to our names other than clothes, personal items, and basic dorm accoutrements.
We found a small, very basic one bedroom apartment (which required a down payment and security deposit, and northern NJ is a very expensive area), bought one decent used car (Phill drove me to work and picked me up every day, in addition to his commute, for a couple of years), and bought the necessities of life that we didn’t get donated by family (sofa, lamps, blinds, work appropriate clothing, etc.).
And after all of the set up costs for our lives together, the sad truth was that our incomes still weren’t quite enough to cover our bills each month. So we used our credit cards to buy gas and groceries, and fell a little more in debt each month. And then I got a raise, and he got a new job that paid a little better, and I got another raise, and after a year and a half we made enough to cover what we spent each month. And a year after that, we were making enough to whittle down a little of the outstanding debt each month. And each year our incomes went up, and we could whittle a little faster.
So now, nine and a half years later, we own a house (with a monthly mortgage payment of roughly the same amount we were spending for a two bedroom apartment), two cars that were new when we bought them, a large chunk of money built up in our 401(k)s, and some fairly nice personal stuff. We also still have about $30,000 in credit card debt, two car loans, our remaining student loans, an outstanding loan against my 401(k) (taken for the downpayment towards the house), and very, very, very good credit.
Our current financial plan:
- Christmas and other extras are coming out of our yearly profit sharing and bonuses (as normal the last several years).
- IRS return goes to pay off either a credit card or the 401(k) loan, or is held onto in case of emergency (last year was a new water heater when ours died).
- The student loans will be paid off in November next year. The freed up cash goes towards increasing the credit card payments each month after that.
- My husband’s car will be paid off in December next year. Again, the freed up cash goes towards increasing the credit card payments each month after that.
Once we get to that point next year (or if we encounter a financial emergency such as a major medical debt), we will look at our total outstanding debt again and readjust our plan as necessary. We’re currently projecting ourselves as debt free (aside from the mortgage) in anywhere from three to five years.
Unlike most people who have been posting in this thread, I don’t feel ashamed of our debt, or any real regret about it. Sure, there have been individual financial decisions that we’ve made over the last decade+ that we could have made better. We didn’t really need that motorcycle or that trip to Orlando. But, by and large, we’ve made the conscious decision to invest in our future. And we’ve been responsible enough to pay the money we owe. And we’ve been able to live a lifestyle that no one else in our family can afford, and I can help my mom pay her heating bill each winter, and pay for my father’s phone and TV when he’s in the hospital for two weeks. And we’ll probably be helping out on his cousin’s school bill when he starts college next year.
That’s not to say that I think that everyone should do it the way that we did. But it worked for us.
:mad: 
