Whats the best way?

Ok...is your debt past due or are you making minimum payments? What you are saying is a little confusing.

If you have been making minimum payments, keep it in good standing and pay it off.
If it is past due but not charged off, do what you can to prevent it from charging off. If you let it charge off and then settle, it is going to take a lot longer than 6 months to rebuild your credit.

Thanks for the response. To clarify, I've been making the minimum payments for a few years. I recently moved and wasn't able to make payments for a few months. I don't want to have them charged off (how long do I have?).

Ive been trying to decide if settling would hurt my credit too much, or if the damage has already been done by the missed payments. Some of the debt is at penalty rates already. I could try to work it out with them and pay them off without settling if theres a big benefit, i.e. coming out of this with good enough credit to reduce a future mortgage apr enough to warrant the time it would take. (as for the morality of paying it all back, I've given those people more than what I incurred in the first place, a settlement would be profit to them.)

It does look better, on your credit, to pay them off completely, than to 'settle' with them (if you can do this). Keep paying on the debt you have NOW and don't try to 'add' anything to your debt. The more you make payments, to your existing debts, the more your Credit score will go up. That's what I'm doing now. I thought if I kept trying to get 'new' credit, my score would go up. Just the opposite!! The more you apply for credit, the more your Credit score drops!! I'm 'plugging away' at keeping up payments, etc. ..and my Credit score has gone up tremendoulsy!!