We have been in financial trouble also and were getting bullied by debt collectors. The best advice I cangive you is to call the Salvo's and see one of their free financial counselors. They are so helpful and will help you with any budgeting bits you need, they will help you decide what repayments you will be able to stick to and then will be happy to ring the debt collectors for you and advocate on your behalf and get the debt collector to agree to the amount you can afford, its amazing that they will bully you but never a financial counselor.

Worked really well for us and I ended up being able to negotiate with the companies after that no problem as they realised I wouldn't agree to things I couldn't pay no matter what they said!