I think a lot depends on #1 - the kind of debt, #2 - your income and #3 - your potential for bringing in more money or reduce expenses.
In our case, we sold a lot of stuff although that was hardly the entire story. We also trimmed spending the bare bones. Seriously we did almost nothing except work and watch TV. Oh we'd do some fun things but our personal challenge to each other was "how low can you go?" For a date night one night, hubby arranged "dinner" at the Costco food court (under $5 for both of us and that included dessert) then a free concert in the park. It was pretty cool.
At the time we were both working professionals without children so we arranged our financial lives so that my husband's salary paid all our regular bills and my salary just paid my income taxes and all our debt.
Many years later, we got into debt again because of some medical problems, a family crisis that led us to adopt our now daughter and problems at the company where my husband worked. It is amazing how so many financial burdens can befall a family in a very short period of time. As bad luck would have it, this was also when the credit laws changed so not only did our minimum payments doubt, but our interest rates rose sky high. In order to speed our debt pay-off, I called every credit card company to see if there was anything they could do. Finally, a few years after the laws changed, credit card companies figured out they better help customers or else they'd never get paid. They put into place programs where they'd freeze your debt while also significantly lowering your interest rate and fixing your payment to something manageable. I remember on one credit card, the minimum payment went from over $300 a month to only $100 - a huge change.
Also, if you're getting a significant tax refund, go to irs.gov and recalculate your withholding. You need the money now, not later.
