Discover card

[joanie74]

Hello,

I have a discover credit card balance of $3200.  I have no other credit cards.  Within the last 5-6 months I have paid approx. $2100 which brought the card down to the balance of $3200 and limit of $6000.  Is it better to pay $1000 here and there slowly or as fast as possible?  Which way should I handle this to make make my  credit go up faster?   Interest rate is 7.9%.  

Short term goal is to get to 650 as of now I am at 575.  I recently asked Discover to report the decrease in my balance and I wonder how much that will make it the score increase if it does at all.  Waiting to hear your input.

[FrugalRican]

The sooner you pay off the balance, the better, not just because of a credit score sense, but a financial sense.

If you are actually paying off interest, then it's obviously better because you'll get charged less overall.

From a CS point of view, it's better to go from 50% to 5%, because it's pretty much pointless to go from 50 to 40 to 30 to 10.

You're better off getting it down faster, if you can afford it.

Since you only have one card, just make sure you carry a balance on the statement date that reflects anything between 1% and 9% of the total limit (YMMV).

I hope this helps. And welcome to the forums.

[Anonymous]

Utilization is a big factor in your credit score, so your first priority should be to get your utilization below 10% if you can (that's optimum).

Patience is key here.  If you don't have a need for additional credit at this time, then simply pay down your balance as much as possible without overextending yourself financially.  Your score will improve in time.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@joanie74 wrote:

Hello,

I have a discover credit card balance of $3200.  I have no other credit cards.  Within the last 5-6 months I have paid approx. $2100 which brought the card down to the balance of $3200 and limit of $6000.  Is it better to pay $1000 here and there slowly or as fast as possible?  Which way should I handle this to make make my  credit go up faster?   Interest rate is 7.9%.  

Short term goal is to get to 650 as of now I am at 575.  I recently asked Discover to report the decrease in my balance and I wonder how much that will make it the score increase if it does at all.  Waiting to hear your input.

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Hi, welcome to the forums!

And I agree with the others. Never, ever carry CC debt if you can possibly avoid it, with the possible exception of a 0% rate or something unusual like this.

This is especially important for scoring. Since you have only one card, you're getting killed by the balance, as you are still over 50% revolving utilization. And even if you had a 0% going, your scores would be hurt equally.

For scoring purposes, the faster you can get that balance down to $540 (9%) or less, the more quickly your scores will rise.

If you haven't already done much homework here on the forums, you might start with the links in my signature below. Unfortunately, they don't open in a new window, so hold down Command (for Macs) or Control (for Windows) when you click to make them pop up in a new window or tab. Otherwise, it can get really hard to get back to where you started.

Good luck, and congrats on the excellent $2100 paydown over the last 5-6 months! That's wonderful, and that's exactly what you should be doing.

Again, make it a goal to never carry CC debt, unless you're really in a bind, and then work on paying it off as soon as possible. CC's are great for convenience's sake, but they're a brutal way of financing purchases, unless you pay them off every month.

[LS2982]

Welcome to the forums!!

I would pay the balance down as fast as you can. As much as card companies hate not making interest, they love seeing a lot of responsible usage as your making them money with transaction fees. also, not paying crazy interest is the best part!