Debt consolidation vs debt settlement

Depends on your goal. If you are current on your payments but have high interest rates, debt consolidation aka debt management plans aka dmp's or just plain old credit counseling is where you pay one payment that is distributed monthly to your creditors at reduced interest rates ranging from 6 to 9% on average.

If you have more than $7500 in credit card debt and/or personal loans or collections and you are 2 or more payments behind, then debt settlement is good because you settle for half of your debt on average.