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If you are looking to reduce your monthly payments, your best bet would be to do it yourself rather than turning to debt consolidators. You can call your credit card companies and explain the situation to them. That you are interested in paying down your debt, but have thought about switching the balance to another credit card for a lower interest rate. Usually, right over the phone, they will cut your interest rate significantly. I have a friend (in an MBA program) who did this will all of her credit cards and cut her interest rates to 0%. Your mileage may vary. But you should be able to get them to reduce the interest rate significantly. The same monthly payment will now go more towards reducing your debt rather than paying off recurring interest.
And this should go without saying, but you have to cut up those credit cards. You can't spend anything on those accounts and pay them down at the same time.
If you do decide to go with a credit counseling service, ask around and do your homework. There are a LOT of them that are just scams. I would say that most of them are scams, but there are a few legit sources for help out there.
Lastly, don't rule out a home equity line of credit. Depending on your local market, the current value of your home may have increase 2-3% in the past 6 months. If you have a $200K house, that is $4-6K in increased equity that you could borrow against. I would not suggest that as a great idea, but there are others who would guide you to go this way.
Best of luck.
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