If your seriously in trouble, you can call your credit card company for free, they most likely will be willing to work with you to set up a payment plan, reduce interest, or in some cases, they may offer to forgive part of your debt after you pay off part of it. They would much rather write off half your debt than all your debt.

Now you don't state if you own your own home or rent so it is difficult to suggest how to proceed with the credit card debt. At a minimum, try calling the credit card companies and ask them to reduce your interest rate. If you've been consistent with your payments, some will work to reduce it to a fairly low rate. You just need to ask them.

My wife and I also worked our way out of debt (although not quite as high a balance) through a credit counseling service (Consumer Credit Counseling Service – a free service that helped work out a repayment plan for us, since we weren't making enough to get out of debt and struggling to make payments). You may want to check out options like this. They aren't just for people unable to pay their debt.

So I wound up filing a Chapter 7 BK and it wiped out 100% of the CC debt legally in about 3-4 month's time (from the date of filing until discharge date).

The other $10k was a car loan, which I continued to pay on 'as agreed', did NOT reaffirm the loan, and they did not come and take my car. I paid it off back in April and now it has a clean title.

No ~~~BK is not for everyone, but it sounds like you have a lot of debt and a little one to take care and his future to think of. And while going through a BK will trash your credit/score, it's no more so than muddling through years of dealing with collection agencies, some CCCS that will likely "fail" you.. and creditors that will STILL report you even those you are in a payment plan. Or you can wipe out the debt legally through a chapter 7, start fresh and be able to SLEEP at night.

You can get a free consult with most any BK lawyer and he or she will go over all of your debts, your income and help you decide the best course of action.

I have BEEN THERE and done it and this is not an "ad" for anything,but a testimonial. While it wasn't something I really wanted to do .. BK was the best solution for me during a really tough time in my life. I am not sorry I did it.

Hope this helps. Ignore the jerks that can't even give sensible or helpful answers and just bash you. It's clear they've never walked in your shoes.

If you refinance them with a consolidation loan, you're going to be starting back at payment #1 and could wind up paying more in the long run, even if the interest rate and monthly payment are both lower.

eg. If you're a year into a 3 year car loan, and you refinance it with a 4 or 5 year debt consolidation loan, you'll end up making vehicle payments for 5 or 6 years in total. Same goes for the personal loans.

And the interest rate may not be much different or could even be higher on the consolidation loan, depending on the figures on your original loans.

As for the credit card debt, it might be a good choice to consolidate it through your bank, but it will again depend on the terms of the loan and whether or not you need to provide security.

If you take out a consolidation loan secured with your home equity, your home could potentially be at risk if you ever defaulted on that loan for any reason. If you're absolutely certain you can continue to make the payments with no problem, even if you were to lose your job or have some other kind of unexpected emergency, consolidating the credit cards will most likely help you pay them off faster and save money on interest.

But if you would be strapped to make the payments if something unexpected came up, the question to ask is whether it's worth the savings to put your home at risk.

What you can do is bargain with them yourself. Call them up and ask to have your rate lowered for a specific amount of time, which will allow you to 'catch up' and save a bit of money. Then, when it goes back to the normal rate, you'll be able to put some extra money toward your monthly payments which will eventually help your credit report and in the long run save you money.

Basically, and I hate to say it, you're in the same boat as the rest of America. Be glad you don't have my $50K in student loans on top of $9K in credit card debt. Good luck, and really, please don't be fooled by those companies… You'll regret it.