Again: that's the mathematically correct answer, but personal finance is much more about psychology. Somebody who cares so much about the math isn't getting in tens of thousands of dollars of consumer debt in the first place. Telling somebody who is $25K in debt to consolidate the debt into a lower interest personal loan ... in my mind, that's like giving a box of matches to an arsonist.
Yes, you have to have the discipline to use the money you're saving in interest to pay down debt. A $25k credit card debt is lighting roughly $500/month on fire.
The thing I do, both for our personal finances and for our company finances is I make a spreadsheet that goes months into the future with bank balance, income and expense for each day. I can either have, say, the insurance bill be an expense against the bank account the day it's due, or have it be an expense against the bank account when the credit card statement is due. I go about a year out because I have some expenses that are yearly that I have to account for and make sure those can be paid when they are due. Either way it's going to be projected as a payment from the bank account. It takes a few minutes to update, and as long as I adjust the next month's credit card statement to match anything extra we're spending, once it's updated we know exactly where we are.
It's not today's checking account balance that matters, it's the projection for the next two months.
A very important thing to pay attention to is the difference between what happens with online balances when you buy something with a debit card and what happens when you buy something with a credit card. Use a debit card and the expense is instantly deducted from your balance. Buy something with a credit card and it isn't instantly added to the balance.
This is where people struggle. It's easy to check your checking account balance and it's easy to understand that can't go below $0.00. Buy something with a debit card and you instantly can see the update, even if you forget buying it. Buy something with a credit card and it takes some work to see where you're at. You have to add the pending balance to the balance to know what you've actually spent. And have to do some math to know how close to your max spend for the month you're at. It doesn't take any math to see how close a checking account is to zero (or whatever buffer amount you give yourself).
It may help to flip it. Track a balance of what you can spend that month, subtract out everything you've spent including pending balances, subtract out all recurring future charges, and treat it just like your checking account. It can't go to zero. Do it with a spreadsheet you can open on your phone. Treat it exactly like a debit card.
It takes some work and some discipline. As a parent I'm pretty shocked that schools don't seem to teach anything about personal finance. My son bought a house, had some work done and then had some things in the house break that had to be repaired. He was downing in credit card debt. I spent a few months with him helping him build and track a spreadsheet to get out of debt and minimize the interest he paid in the process. Several times he wanted to pay one thing and I showed him how much money it would save to do it a different way. He got out of debt months before he would have otherwise and now has the tools to make sure that doesn't happen.
I have other kids who need me to do that for them, but who won't let me look at their finances so I can help them. And I have other kids who figured it all out on their own and never needed my help. (we have 6 kids)
