Debt management plans

Stay away from these if you can. I did this a few years back, one of those places that takes all your credit card debt info and is supposed to call the companies and renegotiate rates/payments for you and you pay the company a lump sum and they distribute the payments to your creditors. Bad idea. All it does is end up getting your further behind and worse off (damages your credit score even more!). You can call your credit card companies yourself and ask for a lower interest rate or if they will let you skip a month or three with no penalty. The best option is just to take control of your spending, which is difficult. I suggest checking out dollarstretcher.com for some ideas on trimming your spending and daveramsey.com and his "Total Money Makover" book.