***OK just saw your SWH, so you ONLY owe your parents? And have no credit cards? Your original post sounds like you owe some cards? If you owe any credit cards: see my post below. If not, then there's nothing you can do but buckle down and pay your parents. And trip to CA? I know how important it is to treat yourself in life, but to be honest, in times of dire debt, you can't if getting out of debt is your priority. We went 6 YEARS without any vacations or treats while scraping together the bills and paying off debt. We ditched the satellite, the cell phones, pulled a kid from pricy daycare, quit eating out. We HAD TO. Now we are completely debt free and have kept our budget nice and lean. Life is GOOD. I would skip the CA trip. And if you do go on the trip to the tune of a few thousand $: Don't complain that your debt isn't disappearing. No one gets to be both out of debt AND go on vacations****
Several years back I had a gnarly, HUGE IRS debt from filing jointly with my husband who got the debt from bad accountants: Long story short, we never should have owed the massive balance, and couldn't afford to pay it, but there was no help for it. Every one of our settlement offers was rejected. As time wore on making settlement payments to IRS, tax lawyers, and hospital bills for child births, going into debt on credit cards for groceries and gas, we eventually had to file Chapter 7.
ANYWAY, before we filed, we had an AWESOME experience with debt consolidation. If all we had was legitimate debt, we could have paid it off easily once we went that route, but it was the erroneous IRS sum we couldn't pay when all was said and done.
But anyway, if you can STOP using your credit cards, you should go with Greenpath. They are AMAZING, kind, helpful, and they will talk you through your options, and will get your payments down to a fraction. We had been making backed-up credit card payments of about $900+ per month, and they were able to negotiate everything down to under $300/month. Even with their one month fee and their monthly deduction of $10, our payment was hundreds of dollars less. We could have managed and gotten out of debt this way if not for IRS issue. I was also able to pay down a Target card to zero and keep it for emergencies.
It is SO WORTH IT to STOP using those cards and pay them down with a service like this. And very good for your credit. Do it. http://www.greenpath.com/how-we-can-help/debt-counseling Call them. Discuss for free.
If you find yourself saying,
Oh, no I can't give up the cards" Then you're NOT serious about getting out of debt. You can get new cards once you pay this off. I shut down a Capital One and paid through debt consolidation, and ditched another one in bankruptcy. Now fast forward, I have a a good credit score, and a high rewards Capital One card that keeps having credit line increased because it's always paid to zero. Get out of debt and cherish the great habits you form.