Advice Needed! Paying off CC

[Anonymous]

Hello! This is my first post. I've been kinda obsessed with this site for a while now. I have learned a lot and now I'm here to get involved in the convos. I wanted to know in which order I should attack my debt. It's actually embarrasing to see these numbers. Please be nice to me :/

The devil (debt) is as follows:

                                   Balance             Limit                       APR

1. Chase Slate ----$2,326 ----------$4,000-------------- 0% until 8/17 --Then 13.24%

2. Discover It-------$4,000-----------$10,500------------ 0% until 4/17 --Then 20.2%?

3. Costco Citi-------$2,188-----------$8,500------------- 0% until 2/17 --Then 15.49%

4. AMEX-------------$4,637---------- $10,000-----------  0% until 4/17-- Then 16.24%

5. Barclay-----------$1,338 -----------$2,000 -----------  0% until 7/17 --Then 23.24%

6. Capital One -----$1,201-----------$2,000------------- 8.4% 

7. Navy Federal LOC $5,807------$15,000------------ 13.9%

My current FICO score with Credit Check Total is 713. 

Total Avail is $84,550

[takeshi74]

Consider revolving utilization as well as APR.  Your score doesn't really matter at this point.  Your focus is eliminating revolving debt, not applying for new credit.  However, CCT doesn't provide just one score.  It provides a FICO 8 for each of the 3 major CRA's.  If you're going to monitor your scores then be aware of where you stand with all 3 CRA's.

From an interest perspective you want to eliminate balances subject to interest.  However, you also want to get card with high revolving utilization down.  Some of your cards aren't too terrible at ~25-39% but you do have cards at 60-67% that you'll want to get lowered as well.

You really just need to put together a spreadsheet to look at how allocating the fund you have available to pay down your revolving debt can work towards eliminating debt subject to interst and get cards above 50% down.  Once the balances subject to interest are paid off then focus on getting the revolving utilization of all your cards down to 30% and then all paid off.

However, for long term progress you need to address the cause(s) that led to your current situation.  Make sureyou're budgeting and sticking to it.  If you're spending more than comes in then you won't be able to make long term progress.  You need to work towards paying every statement balance in full.

[Anonymous]

I would take a serious look at debt consolidation services to see if they may work with you. I dont know much about them, maybe others can chime in there.. Otherwise, I would first take a hard look at your budget. Figure out the essentials, and the rest should go to your cc debt. I would start by getting everything below 30% of its individual credit limit. Then starting with the lowest balance, pay them all off. Getting below 30% will help save your fico score. Smaller balances get paid off faster, and can mentally help you see progress. Post your progress if it helps as well. Good luck.

[NRB525]

Welcome to the forums.

Thanks for listing out all the cards and amounts. The first response is, you have a lot of time to work on some of these which are still at 0% APR. So from the basic information here, you would want to pay heaviest on Navy Fed, and the Capital One card since those are charging interest today.

You also want to make sure the Discover card is on a path to be zero by February. That card has a nice limit, relative to your overall balances, and Discover usually has constant offers of 3% fee for a 0% APR BT, or no fee for a 4.99% rate. Either one of those options would be helpful as you approach the rest of the balances.

In order to get a more complete suggestion, we need to know how much you are paying now on the cards. From that, it helps outline a budget that you'll want to try to stick to, in order to make progress on the overall balances.

As some additional likely steps: Pay 2x the minimum monthly payment on each of the Chase Slate, AMEX, and Barclay card, to keep them making good progress for now. Set a high monthly payment on the Discover card, then as Costco Citi expires, BT that over to Discover, using the no-fee 4.99% BT, and begin working on that with the same or higher Discover monthly payment. When the AMEX gets to April, BT that over to Discover using the no-fee BT offer. In July, Barclays is subsumed into Discover to pay it off. August, it is Slate's turn. Even if you can't fuly pay them off in just a few months, having the balances on the Discover card at no fee and 4.99% APR gives you new options. You might consider getting a 3% fee BT to the Costco card once that and some other balances are moved to Discover, assuming you are not using the Costco card for regular purchases.

That Capital One card must be a legacy card, they are not handing out 8.4% fixed APR any longer. I have a 10.9% fixed APR Capital One card from 2003. As the balances come down, you can consider apping for a Capital One Venture. That will get you a nice limit, and a higher APR, but after having the Venture for 6 months you should be able to combine the two cards into the existing Capital One at 8.4% APR. Have you PC'd the Capital One card to a Quicksilver no-AF card? That gets you 1.5% cash back. If you pay off your Capital One first, convert it to a QS, then that card should be used for all spend, and PIF every month, while you work on paying down everything else, and no more spending on any of the other cards to help them get to zero faster.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

7 6 3 2 4 5 1. All in that order. Others on here maight give you BETTER advice but for me if i was you id start minimums on all except the one that you throw every last penny towards.
Some people have high balances however its usually on 1 or 2 cards. Yours looks bad only because of how many cards it us split up between.
Also once you gets these PAID OFF id look into putting a few in your sock drawer and theying for higher limits on 1 or 2 of them that you use every day-week.

[Mattopotamus]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I would take a serious look at debt consolidation services to see if they may work with you. I dont know much about them, maybe others can chime in there.. Otherwise, I would first take a hard look at your budget. Figure out the essentials, and the rest should go to your cc debt. I would start by getting everything below 30% of its individual credit limit. Then starting with the lowest balance, pay them all off. Getting below 30% will help save your fico score. Smaller balances get paid off faster, and can mentally help you see progress. Post your progress if it helps as well. Good luck.

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Has anyone really looked at how much the individual card untilization effects your FICO?  I know you want to be below 30% overall, but how many points does it cost you if you are under 30% overall, but a single card is over 30%?  Has anyone actually tested this, or is it just an assumption?

[Anonymous]

Be friends with discover as said above even if your only option is 4% that is much better

[Anonymous]

Cash flow in and out is so dynamic, it is hard to tell what poor UTIL on one card does when you have paid offset amount on your other accounts. As more accounts report an extra month that might be affecting your score as well as you cross into t2 to 3 years of account age on TU for example. I noticed a 10-point drop 2 months in a row when my Care Credit went from 1,000 to 5800 balance. 85%

[Anonymous]

takeshi74-Thanks for the advice! I actually have a very detailed spreadsheet already. I think my plan is to get all CC below 50% util like you suggested. I will accomplish that this week as I have the funds to do so. 

[Anonymous]

698 to 676 with 5 accounts over 30%. used to be just one.