I want to be debt-free

We have been almost debt-free several times. But, just when I thought we were there, something happened. Twice it was because of an accident and surgery and once it was the loss of my husband's job. It is so easy to get into a lot of credit card debt. You think, okay I'll pay it off when the bill comes, but then you can only pay the minimum. The interest kills you. We have to use them to pay the bills because my husband has been out of work for nearly three years. We bought a rollback wrecker so he would have a job he could do, but the insurance and expenses put us a lot deeper into debt. More payments we couldn't make. The bills weren't really paid, the debt was just moved to a credit card. We have decided to sell our large house and get a smaller, cheaper one. It has been on the market for 4 months. We will be getting a debt consolidation loan next week, to put all the bills into one payment with a lot lower interest rate. When we sell the house, everything will be paid off and we will still have enough for a good down payment on the cheaper house. But until then, we'll just keep on track and not put anything else on the credit cards!