Yikes Matt, sell the truck??!!?? Especially when you've landed yourself a full-time engineering job?
I agree wholeheartedly that being debt free is awesome, but odds are it'll be a long, long time before you're really debt free. How many people here are still paying at least a mortgage?
Anyways, I was in the same boat you are, had $10k+ racked up in credit card debt, had about $60k in student loans and had just bought the truck. Did I put myself in a good position, absolutely not. However, I paid off the credit cards first and cut all of them up except 2. There's my US Airways VISA that's tied to my other accounts at BOA which gets paid off every week or so. I use it to buy everything and that helps build up my frequent flier points, and there's an emergency card I never use.
Next I paid the truck off and am working on the student loans now. The kicker is, my student loan interest rate is so low, like less than 3%, that any extra money is better spent in other accounts that can make more than 3%.
I kept it simple and paid off the debt that had the highest interest rate first. Since I have a relatively secure job I feel comfortable extending the period of my debt a little while longer while building savings at the same time.
Have you considered a graduated repayment plan for your student loans? You pay less for the first 2 or 4 years, then more on the years after that. The idea is 2-4 years later you'll be making more money, have paid off other debt, etc, and can afford a higher student loan payment. I did that for 2 years and I'm still only paying $670 and will be paid off in 10 years or so (iirc), if I don't make any increased payments.
To me, the enjoyment I get out of the truck was well worth the couple extra bucks I could have saved over those years.
