What to do first? increase our credit score

You are right that having high balances and numerous cards does lower your credit score. If you have any cards that are not currently at high interest rates, you might try transferring balances to them from your higher interest rate cards, then CLOSE the accounts that you transferred money from. That way you will have fewer open accounts, which hurts your credit score. Then, there are a couple different schools of thought as to how best to start paying down your balances. One thought is to take your highest interest rate card and pay as much as possible each month until it's paid off, while paying minimum payments on the other cards. Then add the amount that you were paying on the one card to the next highest interest account until it's paid off, etc. The other school of though is to pay as much as possible on your lowest balance card until it's paid off, while paying minimums on the others. Then take the amount that you were paying on that card and add it to the minimum on the next lowest balance card, etc. That way you may see progress sooner than if you start with the highest interst rate card. Hope that helps! Good luck!

Welcome to the site, :lol: alias has given good advice, if you have any further questions why don't you give this site a call at 1-800-601-1579 and they would be more than happy to assist you. It looks as though you are a registered user so if you opted for the free counseling someone should be in touch with you soon. If you don't hear anything from someone soon then give them a call. :wink: