6 years of disaster

My story is typical, I started getting credit cards when I went to college. The first one was a mastercard where all you had to do was send a copy of your class schedule and you were automatically approved. From there it blossomed into store cards and other credit cards. I still have a Sears card that I am paying on from a computer I purchased in 1993 for $2800. I've been paying on that card for 15 years now...I enrolled in a debt consolidation program about 7 years ago to get rid of all of my cards, I stopped for a little while & then went back to them. Right now the sears card is the only one left with them.
I had never heard of payday loans about 6 years ago. I was living on my own, making decent money and was getting by.
My sister and her 6 month old son moved in with me and within a few months we started having money problems. To make ends meet and stop borrowing from Mom, I started searching on the internet for ways to make "easy" money and came across the add's for the pdl's. Needless to say, to me it seemed to good to be true, but I applied for and got a loan. As the months went by 1 turned to 2, etc until I had about 14 at one point and my entire month's paycheck was going to fees.
The first time my mother helped me out of the cycle, almost $5000 worth...unfortunately a year or so later I started again and ended up with about 8 more loans...I was able to work those out and swore that I wouldn't do it ever again, for a second time.
I've worked my way out of the pdl cycle 3 times in the last 6 years. This final time, May 08, I finally got to the point where I didn't know what to do, I had car payments coming due and about $1200 in fee's coming out as well and was actually considering another loan to bridge the money gap. I finally said enough is enough and started doing serious research, drafted my letters, revoked authorizations for my account and broke out of the cycle on my own. I did end up closing my account because the bank I use changed their policy & made it mandatory, but it was for the better.
Now I need to work on bringing my credit back up and getting everything else caught up so I can eventually purchase a house, my goal is to buy one before I turn 40 so I have a few years to straighten that mess out...