<prompt> Human: My husband and I have about 9000 in credit card debt- its been a really rough year financially and I finally took over our finances and inserted our debts into a snowball spreadsheet. Due to such high interest rates on our cards and the cards being maxed out- I thought it would be a good idea to open a HELOC and consolidate the cards to pay off the debt a bit quicker. Does this seem like a good idea or does it matter?  <response>: This is only a good idea if you dont charge your cards back again and youll get a significant interest rate decrease. 