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I have $25,000 of credit card debt after a recent divorce. My salary is $80,000 per year. I have a very good credit score, pay all my debts on time, and pay more than the minimum. My interest rates are around 13.99 percent and the credit companies won't lower them any more. I am 56 and have barely any retirement money saved, though I have just recently started contributing to a 401K. My question is, how do I pay off my credit card debt and still save for retirement? I'm really concerned about retirement and whether I can live off of Social Security, if it exists by then. Please help. - Doris

Doris, you earn a nice salary but you need a spending plan, says Certified Financial Planner Luana Mobley Corral of Fort Lauderdale.

A general rule of thumb is to think in terms of dividing your money into three pots:

-10 percent to invest for the long term, which is retirement
-20 percent to save to spend. This is your emergency fund. It’s what you can spend so you can pay cash instead of using credit card debt.
-70 percent to live on

If we all did that when we started our first job out of high school or college, debt would rarely become an issue and most retirement goals could probably be achieved.

Because you have so little saved for retirement, you probably want to put away more than 10 percent toward that long-term goal.

Because you have so much debt, you have compounded your problem.

This is where you can start: Write down everything you spend money on and if you haven’t already, stop using your credit cards. You need an emergency fund and you need a plan to pay down your debt.

You have a 401(k) at work. Your initial retirement saving goal should probably be to put enough money in your 401(k) so that you get the full employer match. The employer match is free money that you don’t want to leave on the table.

Next, you need to segregate the expenses into needs and wants. I’m not suggesting that you eliminate all the “wants” from your spending plan, but for a season, at least some of the money you currently spend on “wants” may need to be redirected to paying down debt or retirement savings.

Look for less expensive ways to satisfy your “wants,” but ways that still satisfy you. Be creative about ways to reduce your “need” expenses. Such as:

-Have FPL do an analysis to see if there are things you can do to cut your light bill.
-Ask your cell phone carrier to evaluate if you are on the most cost effective plan.
-Review your insurance policies with your property casualty agent review to look for ways to lower your premium without substantially increasing your risk.
-Consider refinancing your home, if you plan on staying there a while.
-Brown bag your lunch a few days a week.

You get the idea.

The $25,000 of debt could be paid off in 5 years with payments of about $582 per month, figuring in your card’s 13.99 percent interest rate. That is less than 10 percent of your salary.

But let’s think about how to do this. First, make a list of all your credit cards, the balances you owe and the minimum payments for each one. You should pay the minimum payment on all the cards but one, the one with the lowest balance. For that card, pay as much as you can afford to pay. Let's say you have made a commitment to pay $600 a month toward debt and those minimums add up to $300. You pay them all and devote the extra $300 to the card with the lowest balance. When you get that card paid off, you apply the same strategy to the card that had the next lowest balance. You pay the same amount, in total, every month, but you stack it up so that you’re eliminating one card at a time.

Bottom line, if you start this plan in October, every single month you will be paying $600 toward all your debt until the last credit card is paid off. In February 2016, you should be celebrating the fact that you are debt free.

Why October? Because first I want you to put $1,000 into a savings account to establish your emergency/opportunity fund before you go on to the debt elimination plan.

Once you have paid off the debt, you will add the entire $600 per month into the emergency/opportunity fund until you have enough there to cover three to six months of expenses.

Once you have your emergency/opportunity fund up to that amount, you can begin to put that $600 a month toward your retirement savings. You should already be putting enough in your 401(k) to get your full Employer match. Now you are going to add the entire $600 per month to what you are saving already.

I suggest that you do your 401(k) deferral as a percentage of pay instead of a flat dollar amount. That way, you will automatically save part of your pay raises. When your paycheck goes up, so will the amount going into the 401(k).

Since you are newly divorced, I also encourage you to check all your beneficiary arrangements –you’re your will, any trusts, life insurance, retirement plans -- to be sure you have made all the changes that are appropriate for your new life as a single woman.