Credit Cards

[MareT]

I've read articles on this and other websites and the advice seems to differ slightly so I'm not sure where to start. Here's my situation: My husband and I have been blessed with an extra $1500/month and we have the following debt:

Discount Tire: $573.02 - $700 CL - 82%
Direct Merchants Bank: $634.12 / $600 CL / 106%
Juniper Visa: $442.61 / $500 CL / 89%
CareCredit: $804.31 / $2000 CL / 40%
Dell: $2264.98 / $2500 CL / 91%
Dell: $2385.52 / $2500 CL / 95%

1. Should we pay off one card at a time? If so, in what order? Balance? Interest?
2. Should we put some money toward each card now? If so, what percentage?

BTW - We have no car payments and just refinanced our mortgage for about $400 less per month.

Thanks for your time,
Mare

Message Edited by MareT on 06-03-2008 06:33 PM

[MsKiwi]

---

MareT wrote:
I've read articles on this and other websites and the advice seems to differ slightly. I'm not sure where to start. Here's my situation: My husband and I have been blessed with some extra money, but not enough to pay off all of our credit cards. Should we pay off one card at a time? If so, in what order? Should we put some money toward each card? If so, what percentage? Thanks for your time. We have the following credit cards #1 - $700 limit - $573.02 balance (82%) #2 - $600 limit - $634.12 balance (106%) #3 - $500 limit - $442.61 balance (89%) #4 - $2000 limit - $804.31 balance (40%) #5 - $2500 limit - $2264.98 balance (91%) #6 - $2500 limit - 2385.52 balance (95%) Total owed: $7000 +/-

---

How much money are you talking? In order to give you the best advise I think you need to state how much $$ you are receiving.

 You need to make a serious dent in Card #2 as you are over your limit. Considering you are almost maxed out on every card I would pay on all cards. Card #4 is your only card not maxed out.

[FretlessMayhem]

FICO scoring considers a card to be maxed out if it is over 80 percent utilization when it reports.

Your util is more than likely killing your scores quite a bit. As the previous poster said, it is hard to give advice without knowing the amount of money you have to work with. If you have enough, you should try and knock down each account to under 50 percent utilization. If you can swing that, you'll probably see a nice score bump.

[Creditaddict]

www.whatsthecost.com

enter your credit card balances, interest rate, and min. payment.  Then enter your total your willing to spend a month towards these debts and it will tell you what to pay on first to save the most money and get out of debt fastest.

[codeman5022]

---

Creditaddict wrote:

www.whatsthecost.com

enter your credit card balances, interest rate, and min. payment. Then enter your total your willing to spend a month towards these debts and it will tell you what to pay on first to save the most money and get out of debt fastest.

---

AWESOME!! I've been looking for a calculator like this, I could only find ones that did lump sum, THIS IS GREAT!! THANK YOU!

[greyhound2007]

     If it were me I would pay cards 1-4 off, then divide the 1545.94 between the last two cards.  Then I would pay heavily on the highest interest rate card left and pay min. payments on the lowest interest rate card.  Then when the highest interest rate card is paid off take all that money you paid mthly on it and pay that plus what you were paying mthly on the other card and pay the last card off.  JMO  Good Luck Vicki

[MareT]

BUMP :-)

[smallfry]

Extra 1500 a month? You should be totally out of debt in 5 months if you don't use the cards. Pay off the highest interest cards first and in 6 months your score will be at the highest it could be under any circumstances. KISS. Sockdrawer the cards till then.

[greyhound2007]

     I could have swore when i read this earlier you said you had 4000.00 to pay toward your cards.  Am I losing my mind or what??? Vicki

[MareT]

No, you're not losing your mind. It was a combination of confusion and miscalculation. Everyone's advice really helped, despite the "slight" number change. :-)