Extra income will work wonders too --it's a tough economy, but if one of you can pick up a weekend shift at Mickey D's, that money can go straight to the snowballing. And yummy free food, too! If you've gone through a rough year, you've probably already pruned your budget, but see if there's something else that can go. Can you live without cable for six months or a year? --and so forth.
The opposite version of snowballing (pay off the smallest balance, then next-smallest, etc.) is to pay the highest-interest card off first, then next-highest. This is more "correct" financially, but it can feel like it takes forever if that first card has a high balance.
What some people do is snowball the first three accounts and then go after the high-interest ones. That's good for morale, and it will save you some money once you can knock off the high-APR accounts.
And the deal with either approach is once you pay off an account, you add the amount you were paying on that one to the minimum you've been paying on the next one, so that it is reduced more quickly. On and on with the following accounts.
And as marty said, if you haven't already, get the cards out of your wallet and put them in the sock drawer.
Are there locally-based credit unions in your area? You might want to talk to them about a partial loan, especially for the highest-APR cards. I would first buy a new FICO EQ report from here (most CU's pull Equifax) and show it to the loan officer, asking for an educated opinion. They'll have to pull the real thing if you apply, but tell them it's a Beacon 5.0, just the slightly trimmed consumer version. They might be willing to give you a tentative thumbs up or down before the formal application.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
