Consolidating: Each payout you receive does make a total in your wallet, however when you go to spend, transfer, sell, etc. Each transaction accessed cost extra transaction fees. To avoid higher fees later it is suggested to consolidate all your payouts into 1 coin if you will.
so in my wallet its not jst a ballance it more of a collection of ballances added together ? and how do we know when its good to consolidate ?
When mempool is near empty and fees are low, I've found the following site to be a reasonable guide:
https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/Note fees are usually measured per byte since the transaction block size is limited - miners aim to maximize transaction fees earned per byte