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No longer ( YAY! ) in desperate need of good advice!

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Ashes
Frequent Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Crisis - That's actually a really good idea. The reason that the store cards ( not including Walmart ) are all reporting balances is because they all had deferred payment plans on them that all ended around the same time. Bad planning on my part, but I digress. That would get rid of five balances at once and knock 150.00 a month off of my total payment, as well as decreasing my overall utilization by 1012.37. 

 

Creditaddict - It is in my bank account and my monthly payment is 148.00. Yes, that's high, but not so high that I can't afford it. Especially if I take Crisis' advice and pay off all of my store cards with that money. When you take missteps and have less than perfect credit, you just have to pay more for credit than the average human being. It's part of the territory and I'm okay with that. I've been down this road in the past before, though I was young and had no concept of credit at all. I am older now and have a better understanding. Its just that circumstance kind of got in the way and threw all kinds of wrenches into my plans. So I'm back to square one. I dug myself into this hole and now I've got to climb out.

 

KennyS2006 - I think that Crisis' advice combined with your advice would be a good way to go. I'd knock down a good bit of my utilization and lower my overall monthly payment as well. I know people like to say take out the highest interest cards first, but, as with the snowball effect, I think there's more motivation in taking out the small and working up to the larger balances. And as they're store specific cards, it is less likely for them to be used as the others. So my question is, following this method, how long should I wait before requesting CLIs to further help me decrease utilization? FP and all the store cards other than Walmart have already reported and are thus showing their current high balances. All the Cap One cards, Credit One and Walmart report on the third and the eighth. I guess it only makes sense to wait for everything to report the new balance before requesting because requesting at this point gets an instant denial due to the utilization being extremely high. That is the villian here.

 

bernhardtra - Thanks for the advice. PS - I love your siggy. Smiley Very Happy

 

Notfancy - Thanks for the input. I typically pay more than the minimum monthly and can and will make additional payments but... as I mentioned before... circumstance has gotten in the way and led me to this point. There are other things that I am in the process of repairing. I am also currently on leave ( with no more sick hours available ) as well as searching for a new job. Therefore I can't really give an answer when it comes to having an exact budget but I am working on getting to the point where I can.

Officially in the garden as of 07.01.2015
Message 11 of 54
Chris679
Established Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Please understand that small balances will pay themselves off with the interest you save by paying the highest interest rates first. Pay the minimum on everything and put every penny into the card with the highest rate. Listing the APR for each account will allow us to give better advice.
Message 12 of 54
Creditaddict
Legendary Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!


@Ashes wrote:

Crisis - That's actually a really good idea. The reason that the store cards ( not including Walmart ) are all reporting balances is because they all had deferred payment plans on them that all ended around the same time. Bad planning on my part, but I digress. That would get rid of five balances at once and knock 150.00 a month off of my total payment, as well as decreasing my overall utilization by 1012.37. 

 

Creditaddict - It is in my bank account and my monthly payment is 148.00. Yes, that's high, but not so high that I can't afford it. Especially if I take Crisis' advice and pay off all of my store cards with that money. When you take missteps and have less than perfect credit, you just have to pay more for credit than the average human being. It's part of the territory and I'm okay with that. I've been down this road in the past before, though I was young and had no concept of credit at all. I am older now and have a better understanding. Its just that circumstance kind of got in the way and threw all kinds of wrenches into my plans. So I'm back to square one. I dug myself into this hole and now I've got to climb out.

 

 


WAIT FREEZE!!

 


I'm not saying that some of this advice wouldn't be the path to take if we were not using a CASH ADVANCE LOAN TO DO IT!

you are wiping out $150 worth of payment over 5 cards with the highest interest rate being what 26.99%? using a loan with a $150 monthly payment with an interest rate of AT LEAST 70% if not higher, you tell us??

and your statement in blue is true for those that have done more than a mis spend... you pay more for BK and lates and delinquencies, not because you have spent to much or got behind so you used credit to meet living needs... now you just buckle down and make your situtation better WITHOUT borrowing more, especially if you are going to borrow at 3x your worst rates... that is making a catastrophic  financial mistep out of the mistep you already took...

Take a step back, I KNOW it feels so good to pay off 5 cards and make 1 payment but not at triple the cost!

cut your losses on this loan now and pay back the $1300 or what ever it will cost you and lets work on your plan with your current cards and current payments, even if it's just $10 extra a month towards 1 card...

Message 13 of 54
Creditaddict
Legendary Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!


@Chris679 wrote:
Please understand that small balances will pay themselves off with the interest you save by paying the highest interest rates first. Pay the minimum on everything and put every penny into the card with the highest rate. Listing the APR for each account will allow us to give better advice.

since the balances are failry close together and dealing with small amounts of extra money towards payments... Most needs the WINS of paying off faster then they need the savings of a few dollars by doing the snowball of interest rate.... in this case I would do snow ball of balance smallest to highest, not interest rate.

Message 14 of 54
Dubious
Frequent Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

I have to agree with Creditaddict on this one. You want to save $150 in monthly payments only to turn around and pay almost that same amount on that loan? That makes no sense. 

 

And if the interest rate on the loan is even higher than the interest rates of the cards, then it definately doesn't make sense. 

Message 15 of 54
Rhaeny
Valued Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

I have to agree with Creditaddict in that you take the money you got from Avanti and pay them back immediately.  As long as you are steadily paying down your balances, your score WILL go up.  If you have time to wait on your latest inquiries to fall off, then you have time to NOT pay an absorbant amount of interest to Avanti that otherwise could be going towards your current debt.

 

Here is a free debt calculator that should help you figure out how to pay your debt down paying the LEAST amount of interest.  

http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/debt-reduction-calculator.html

 

Also as suggested, you should post in debt challenge thread.  I am in it and there are so many helpful people over there to help you through this.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/The-GREAT-CC-Payoff-Challenge/td-p/2689987

 

 

Good Luck OP!


Major CC's - Barclay's ($5.5K) | Barclay's Sallie Mae MC ($5K) | DCU ($7.5K) | Discover IT ($1.4K) | Genisys Visa ($1.4K) | NFCU Visa ($22K) | Navcheck ($15K) | Chase Freedom ($5K) | SDFCU Visa ($8K) | Amex BCP ($9.5K) | Amex Delta ($10K) |Store CC's| -Amazon ($4K) | Catherines ($850) | JCP ($4K) | Macy's ($1.7K) | Avenue ($850) | Victoria's Secret ($1.4K) | Walmart ($4.1K) | Paypal SC ($1.3K) | HSN ($2.5) | Sears ($2.6K) | Sams Club ($4.1K) |Goal|: Age with grace to 750 across the board |Last app|: 3/3/2014
Message 16 of 54
Ashes
Frequent Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

In all my configuring the monthly amount of the loan was always included. I was comparing the amount I'd spend monthly if I stuck with my original plan of using the loan to pay off only two of the cards as opposed to the solution offered by Crisis to pay off five of the cards. Without factoring the loan in at all, my monthly payment amount is still higher than it would be with the loan payment amount included, provided that I used it to pay off five of the cards with smaller balances.

Officially in the garden as of 07.01.2015
Message 17 of 54
Rhaeny
Valued Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!


@Ashes wrote:

In all my configuring the monthly amount of the loan was always included. I was comparing the amount I'd spend monthly if I stuck with my original plan of using the loan to pay off only two of the cards as opposed to the solution offered by Crisis to pay off five of the cards. Without factoring the loan in at all, my monthly payment amount is still higher than it would be with the loan payment amount included, provided that I used it to pay off five of the cards with smaller balances.


It appears as if you are only considering the monthly payment and not the consequences of the interest over a period of time.  Interest can nickel and dime you to death and you not even know it.  So in your case, by taking the loan, you are sacrificing a lower payment in exchange for higher interest. Yes it does probably look good on paper, but the time factor has to be considered as well.  

 

It kind of goes back to the old saying that you can't borrow your way out of debt.  Yes I tried it years ago, but I paid for it dearly.  I took out a loan that lowered my overall monthly payments.  I felt like I had extra money but in reality I didn't.  What I had was a super duper extended payment plan that costed me a lot of money...LOL!!!  

 

So I understand how you feel, but at least consider what everyone is telling you.


Major CC's - Barclay's ($5.5K) | Barclay's Sallie Mae MC ($5K) | DCU ($7.5K) | Discover IT ($1.4K) | Genisys Visa ($1.4K) | NFCU Visa ($22K) | Navcheck ($15K) | Chase Freedom ($5K) | SDFCU Visa ($8K) | Amex BCP ($9.5K) | Amex Delta ($10K) |Store CC's| -Amazon ($4K) | Catherines ($850) | JCP ($4K) | Macy's ($1.7K) | Avenue ($850) | Victoria's Secret ($1.4K) | Walmart ($4.1K) | Paypal SC ($1.3K) | HSN ($2.5) | Sears ($2.6K) | Sams Club ($4.1K) |Goal|: Age with grace to 750 across the board |Last app|: 3/3/2014
Message 18 of 54
Chris679
Established Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Yes, thinking in terms of monthly payments is exactly what gets people into financial trouble to begin with. Banish those words from your vocabulary forever.
Message 19 of 54
Ashes
Frequent Contributor

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

I do understand what everyone is saying and I do appreciate the advice. We've all established that the loan was a bad idea but it is done and it will fulfill its purpose. I could have easily opened this thread by vaguely saying that I'd come into 1200.00 and needed advice on the best way to pay down some of my debt but I did not. You may not agree with the method that I have chosen and that's fine. Perfectly fine. To each their own. The fact remains that I made this decision and I will deal with the consequences of it as they come, I don't really have a choice but to.

 

I do appreciate the time that everyone has taken to analyze the situation and respond. Maybe I should have asked for input before I took action but I didn't. As often as I lurk the board, I could have but it didn't occur to me to ask for input until it was too late. Now...

 

... completely overlooking the loan being the worst thing in the history of ever that I could have done ( not being sarcastic here, I know it's a really bad choice ), is there anything else that anyone else would like to add in for consideration before I make a move...?  

Officially in the garden as of 07.01.2015
Message 20 of 54
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