<prompt> Human: I have four credit cards and a little over 20k in CC debt. Only one card is at a decent interest rate and with my Credit Union, the rest are between 20-30 or so. Id say half of it is up to a few years old, the other half goes back many years.Im 35, live in Madison WI, went back to school a few semesters ago, and have between 1-3 years left depending on whether or not I go for a 4 year degree which I probably will. Im currently working part time at a crap-paying job and hope to find something better for the summer - its 29 hoursweek at 9.35hr. School is quite difficult and time consuming so I dont exactly have the time or energy to work full-time during the semester. At the moment, I am dead-broke and my cards are nearly maxed out, lately using them only when I absolutely have to for billsnecessitiesetc.I always make all my payments, somehow, but Im now at the point where Ill no longer be able to. My CC monthly payments total around 700 or so at the moment. What should my first step be? I assume its go to a credit counselor, but Im not sure how to go about finding a good one and Ive read some are not too great. Id consider debt consolidation but only if it could very substantially lower my monthly payments, and I dont want to end up paying more over time than I would as-is. Something like Chapter 7 bankruptcy seems pretty drastic, but I would consider it if it were my only option for crawling out of this hole. Just not really sure what to do. And whatever I do or dont do Im probably going to be missing some credit card payments for the first time in a few weeks anyway.Advice?  <response>: Do you have a written budget? Thats the first thing I would suggest is put together a monthly budget and figure out how much you can spend in each category to live, Then figure out how much you potentially have leftover and throw it at the smallest debt to hopefully get rid of it. During the summer if you find a better paying job, try to throw as much at the debt as you can so you wont have such large payments coming out every month. Also, if you find a good paying job , you could see if theyd let you work remotely during school part time and pay you the same hourly rate... Im assuming youre single, and if so you should also be able to have minimal expenses or be able to reducd monthly expenses too depending on what youre spending now. Im not sure what a credit counselor might Do, but that could help get a handle on it all. Id say try to avoid bankruptcy as much as possible. 