In addition to balance transfers, there are other alternatives to debt consolidation loans, such as: Credit counseling – non-profit credit counseling can help you create a budget and develop a plan to repay your debt. The U.S. Department of Justice has a list of approved credit counseling agencies you can work with, but be careful to avoid companies not on this list offering debt relief as they could be scams. Debt repayment strategies – the debt snowball and debt avalanche are two methods for paying down debt. They each involve paying the minimum toward all of your accounts and focusing your attention on paying extra toward just one credit card account at a time. The debt snowball focuses on the account with the lowest balance first, while the debt avalanche method focuses on the account with the highest interest rate.