Many recent posts on the forums have people looking to get out of debt.

My generic plan:

List your gross income (60k for example)
Take 20% of the gross income.

(12k for this example)
The 12k is the amount per year to apply to debt (1k per month or 20% of monthly gross income applied to debt).

The remainder of the money (80%) should be marked for living expenses. I would include car loans for living expenses, and a mortgage as a living expense, so these bills can come from the 80%.

How you apply the money to the debt (snowball method, highest interest rate first, other) is a matter of personal prefernence.

Once the debt is paid off, I suggest taking the 20% debt payment and breaking this up into a 15% and 5% portion.

The 15% portion gets set aside for retirement.

The 5% portion gets set aside for short and mid term expenses.