Bump on this ? mostly would like to learn more about the latter part of the main post at this point . <| sep |> I made similar mistakes at the age of 18 , and I am still paying them off now at 23 . Unfortunately , I was well over 10 k when all was said and done so please , stop charging things now while you ' re ahead take it from me . Now , getting these numbers down is no easy task , which you already know . However , I ' ve found condensing the debt like you ' re attempting to does help . Don ' t go for consolidation loans , because their interest rates are often just as high or higher than your cards , and definitely higher than your existing car loan . You said 10 k , but how many cards is this across total ? When I was in deep water , the main issue was the number of payments I was having to make at a time , not the total amount of the payments . Depending on the age of your credit , along with your 614 score , you may be eligible for a credit card that has a 0 % balance transfer APR for a year or 18 months when you open it Credit Karma is a great site that tells you which cards have these offers before the fact , and also your chances of being approved for the card before applying . What I did was take my cards with 23 k balances and put them on one of the cards with a balance transfer offer like I just described with a high credit limit . This consolidated the card payments down to a single monthly payment , making the spread of my bills much easier throughout the month . You won ' t be gaining interest which obviously helps as well , and if you don ' t get the card paid off by the 12 or 18 month deadline you can transfer to another newlyopened card around that time with a similar offer . Opening the new card both the first AND second time if needed will raise your total credit limit and help your score overall , along with the additional active account . Note that these balance transfers will usually still have a 3 % transfer fee , but this easily beats paying the interest you would have been paying otherwise . If you don ' t currently have a high credit limit card , I ' d suggest trying through a credit union if you belong to one Navy Federal CU or a limitedmembership bank with prerequisites for entry USAA . If you choose this route , remember that it is important to keep throwing as much money as possible to this card balance each month . If you just make the minimum payments , you will still be saving with the 0 % interest over time , but paying the balance down will go extremely slow . Let me know if you ' d like any more details or insight into this . Hope it helps and good luck !