A question that I would ask is. "What are you spending money on?". I presume that when you say that you are spending money, you're buying things that you don't really need, and leaving yourself short for the rent or mortgage and other expenses.

Many people do manage money poorly. There is lots of research that indicates that if we get a windfall of money, like a tax refund, we tend to spend it several times over, rather than using it to pay down debt, as we might have intended. One of the more helpful things that you can do, and it takes only a few minutes, is to write down your income and expenses, and see how much of a monthly deficit you have even before you put the first dollar on credit cards. One place where I agree with Dave Ramsay is in the need to pay cash for everything. The bills get paid FIRST. After that, no more money, no more stuff. It's that simple. A complication is that both you and your spouse have to agree on spending limits.

This may not be the most helpful response, but filing for bankruptcy is an option, particularly because you and/or your spouse have been out of work. Under bankruptcy reform, you have to be making less than the median income for your family size (3) for the county in the state where you live to get your debts discharged under chapter 7 (so-called "straight bankruptcy").

Assets that are protected in bankruptcy include, but are not limited to, one's retirement accounts and a certain amount of personal assets. Debts that cannot be discharged under bankruptcy include student loans and debt to the IRS. There is an exception that allows student loans to be discharged if you can prove that having to pay them back would be an undue hardship, but that has to be decided in court.