Avoid a 'debt consolidation' - particularly through a bank. You can instead reduce your payments by getting the assistance of debt reduction organisations. Most of these are free and run by volunteers. What happens is these people act on your behalf and approach your creditors about reducing your interest costs and even the principal on your obligations. The result is a significantly lower monthly payment and a more rapid schedule to pay it off. The bonus about this is that you can avoid bankruptcy - which generally sticks with you for seven years. Basically you are restructuring your debt instead of taking out additional credit to consolidate it.