I have cash to BURN!

[DollyLama]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

OP, could you give us the cards' APRs? With raw dollar amounts for interest, I'm afraid of making a mistake.

i agree with the advice above that suggests to "un-max" each card first. You can do this by getting them down to 88.9% utilization or lower, although giving yourself a cushion beyond that is fine, too. Un-maxing the cards would amount to about $3,500.

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Agree, then OP can also see, what creditors may balance chase the limits. 

[SecretAzure]

Seems like there are several different schools of thought here.

1. Paying off highest interest first, leaving scattered amounts among most of your cards.

2. Paying the smallest balances off completely, leaving the higher balance cards (and likely with the most interest) left to work on.

3. Paying off a small amount amount across all cards to get balances under 80% and then paying down the highest interest cards.

Strategy 1 is best for your wallet and personally, the one I would choose.

Strategy 2 is best for your peace of mind, having a balance across 3 or so cards is a lot less worrying for your mind than a balance across 10 or so different lines.

Strategy 3 is best for your FICO score. If you're not thinking of applying for new credit soon, I would through caution to the wind and ignore this...it will go up as your debt ratio goes down naturally.

Choose which ever one works for you, they are all good strategies...just make sure to keep paying it all down and on time!

Good luck with which ever path you choose!

[Dalmus]

Is this $16K in addition to your regular payments, or does this this include your regular payments?

I wouldn't worry about score at the moment... I'd work on saving money.  Score will fix itself as you pay off the debt.

If you've just been paying minimums, You're probably paying somewhere around $700/month, assuming 2% of balance minimum payment.

If I extrapolate your minimums (2% of balance) plus interest to all your cards (I'll assume 24% interest for Macy's), you have to pay at least $1336 a month JUST to keep the balances from going up.  That's more than my mortgage & insurance each month!

If you use that same $16K to pay to $0 as many cards as you can (I'm thinking 2, 4, 6 ,7 and 8), you immediately cut your "break even" monthly payment in half... That means you have $600+ extra to throw at 1, 3, 5 and 9 to start paying those down.  If they have been maxed for years, I would expect some of the cards you paid off to be closed or to at least get a CLD.

My math is very rough...  Obviously every card isn't 2% for a minimum, and maybe you have a promo period on Macy's.  Don't kill me if I'm off by $100 either way.