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If that is an issue for you, I'd suggest spending a bit of time doing a spreadsheet.
Take your current debts and lay them out showing how the balance changes depending on how much you pay to them each month (don't forget to include the interest). And include how much you spend total on the debt.
At your point in life I wouldn't really focus on saving (except for some truly emergency fund) but on eliminating the big debt. It can be quite an incentive to see that if you put an extra $50 into the credit card payment each month that it pays off six months sooner (for example) and that every extra $1 you pay now saves $2.50 over the course of the payoff
Definitely don't get stuck in a cycle of just paying the minimum on your credit card since you'll never make any progress.
As an example, let's say you owe $5000 on a credit card and it has an interest of 12%.
If you make $50 payments each month you will maintain that $5,000 debt forever and the credit card companies will be extremely in love with you.
If you make $60 payments each month you will carry a debt for just over 15 years and pay out a total of $10,860 to pay off that $5,000. This is about what the credit cards will let you get away with.
If you make $75 payments each month you will carry a debt for just over 9 years and pay out a total of $8,325.
If you can make $125 (twice what the credit card companies will let you get away with) it is paid off in 4 years, 3 months - almost 1/4th the time - at a total cost of $6,500 - 40% less cost.
Of course, the key is that while you're paying off consumer debt that you not be adding new consumer debt. Don't make late payments that will allow the cards to jack up the interest rate to incredible levels and if you have high interest cards try to transfer your balance to new cards with more reasonable rates and then close the old card. If you have multiple cards, pay the minimum on all of the other cards and put the rest that you can into the highest rate card until it is paid off.
Don't fall into the trap I did in college which is pretend the debt simply doesn't exist and that if I ignored them long enough the debts would simply go away (they do, but it is a really long time).
Don't think of your car as investment debt (like a house or an education) but rather as consumer debt. That is, debt that in the end leaves you with no asset of great value. When you pay off your $300,000 house you have $300,000 in equity. When you pay off your $25,000 car you probably have at best about $3-5,000 in equity, against which you can't easily borrow. If you're finding the car payment and the apartment rent to be onerous then put your energy most into changing them because they are most in your control (don't waste time worrying about credit card debt; it can't be changed and all you can do is keep paying it). Sell the car and get a cheaper one that is good enough for your needs (though odds are you car has been depreciating faster than you're paying it off but it might still be a good move).
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