I have accumulated credit card debt $20k and the things that went on them are no longer an issue (medical, emergencies). I want to quickly re-build my emergency fund and savings (I put about .5 of my net take home into a Roth, and have PERS) so that this doesn't happen again, but I have very little discretionary income to save after bills are paid (mortgage, small car payment, personal loan payment, and minimums on several credit cards).

I'd like to consolidate the cards into a personal loan which seems to be the only way to be able to pay down debt while also saving at the same time. Unfortunately I need to wait about three months for my credit score to go up to get any kind of reasonable personal loan rate.

I know that people have shared inventive savings techniques here so I'm curious about how you would do this while also paying down the debt. I'm not willing to just spend many months paying all of my income to debt payments without re-building my emergency fund, so it isn't one or the other.…