re: Say you were to "give up" and go with debt consolidation?

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Friends of ours did the envelope thing. Thats Ramsey too, right?

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Yes. Works like a charm. Instead of being an abstract concept, money becomes a tangible thing again. I know some folks laugh it at and it is hokey, but we use in it place of audited accounting (which would be prohibitive to run a private residence not occupied by billionaires). Sometimes, we have to move things around to zero it out, but it is much more of a zero sum game that way.

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The idea of "paying everything off" and then being left with one note instead of 11 appeals to me.

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Psychologically - it's new borrowing. You're borrowing money when borrowing money got you in the situation in the first place. What you will find is that you'll pay on your consolidation plan, effectively a second mortgage (or pay for a house you don't own), and then all your paid off cards will start drawing spending again. You won't develop any discipline and you'll not generate wins.

The psychological feedback of the snowball works. You build small wins (paying something off so it never hurts you again. Write the letters "FO" on that last check to retire a debt if you want). Which encourages you to keep going. As you pay off bigger and bigger amounts, you start to build up momentum - "the snowball" becomes an avalanche - a good avalanche.