This month: cancel and negotiate
Subscriptions you forgot, insurance you never re-shopped, the phone plan from 2021. None of this is fun, all of it is fast, and $40–150/month is typical. Route every found dollar straight to the highest-APR debt before it gets absorbed.
This quarter: the windfall rule
Tax refunds, gifts, sold stuff, rebates. Decide the rule now — "windfalls split 50/50 between payoff and a small reward" — so the money lands by policy instead of by mood. A single $800 refund on the scenario above pulls the payoff date forward by weeks.
Structural: shrink the interest, not the lifestyle
A balance transfer or credit-union consolidation at half the APR does in one move what months of scrimping do — if (and only if) the old card stays at zero and the fixed payment continues. The trap is treating freed-up minimums as spending money; the snowball has to keep rolling.