Whats the best way to get out of debt if you have no money?

I think the best way is to stop everything, sit down, and rationalize all your spending and all your income on one big piece of paper. Get another job if possible. Also, sell any extra junk you have. Start with a clean slate. Then you have to become amateur accountants, and you should check the web to see if there are any free household accounting sites where you can enter all your expenses every day, no matter how trivial (I'm sure they exist - see links below - yahoo has one budgeting site -- try to find a simple program that isn't going to scan your info and sell it to the highest bidder). Start off simply also by appraising your bank and comparing to other banks in terms of interest, service charges, etc. ING direct gives good interest rates and encourages saving without fees.

If possible, consolidate your debt through a loan with a reputable bank, so that you pay one payment every month. Then agree with one another that you must (MUST) cooperate and both be spartan, not for a month or two, but for 10 years. You want to have something to retire with don't you? You want to be wealthy, yes? You may even want to consider moving where the cost of living is lower and where your money will go further.

You should read everything you can about investing and saving -- but don't jump on the bandwagon with any hare-brained schemes. Don't waste your money buying these get rich books (that will just make other people rich); read them at the bookstore if you have one of those big bookstores near you where you can sit down and have a coffee and look at the books. Most of them advise real estate investment schemes and so on, but you should invest cautiously and slowly over a long time. Even if your debts are enormous, and even you only save 10 cents this week, it is a start. That's how you have to think - begin by pinching pennies. From absolutely every chunk of money you have coming in your door, force yourselves to save a small amount of it for your future - and do not touch it. You also have to learn about taxes and investments. Treat it like going to night school. You have to teach yourselves how to live and spend so that you will become wealthy. Eventually if you create a big enough lump of money, it will earn money for you.

It will also help you to learn how the financial world really works. That is, why are some people so rich, and others not? If there's one thing you should invest in right now, it's a reputable correspondence course on financial planning and investment. It will teach you how the system works, how to get returns on your investments. Also you should both start reading the Economist and the Financial Times or Businessweek - or other newspapers and magazines aimed at the business world, every day, and every weekend. Do not skip days. Force yourselves to make time to read these things cover to cover, and learn how to read the stocks columns. It will REALLY open your eyes. It makes the whole world look different. Eventually it will start to become clear that another world exists out there with its own rules and dramas. Your aim is to become part of that world, not one of the millions of impoverished drudges (I am speaking as someone with a fair amount of student debt, so I can sympathise) who feed that world and keep it going. It will feel like the whole world is against you in doing this, and it will be because the world is set up to keep us poor, buying lots of stuff on credit, etc. But you don't have to live that way. The key ultimately is psychological and philosophical, about changing the way you live and look at the world and think about yourselves, not about the get-rich-quick scheme of the moment. It's like anything else that requires skill, knowledge and determination but provides benefits for you to reap - like losing weight, learning to drive or swim, working hard on or creating something, etc. And remember: buy low, sell high. Don't get sidetracked, and don't waste money on useless investments once you have some to spend.