Paying Down CC...

[Anonymous]

Which should I pay first?

Trying to reduce utilzation on my CC, who should I pay first? Also, should I PIF or carry a balance (of 20% of less I assume). Thanks in advance for any help.

Victoria Secret: Bal 560., limit 1050

Express: Bal 170, limit 250

Capitol One: Bal 250, limit 300 
Bal 115, limit 300

My plan was to pay the minimum on most and pay down one card at a time with any extra.

[BUN]

Find out the APR on all of ypur cards and pay them down from highest to lowest. 

[Anonymous]

Paying down the cap 1 with 250/300 on it at least a little bit will prob give the biggest score boost. It depends what you want. Paying the higher interest rate will save you some money and speed up the process, but that cap1 is showing close to maxed out, thus getting it down even an extra 50 bucks will prob get you a score boost.

[disdreamin]

I'll add a thought, from the Dave Ramsey school of cc payoff. It may not make financial sense (you'll potentially pay more in the long run, depending on interest rates on your various balances) but it can make emotional sense to pay off the lowest balance first, then the next lowest and so on - always rolling everything you've been paying on the lowest balance card up to the next lowest once the bottom one is paid . The thought is that knocking out low balances gives incentive to keep going.

I believe it is termed a snowball approach, where you pay more and more to the next lowest balance as you move up the ladder, and it can be very motivating for some people. It is an alternative if *you* think motivation might be an issue. Again, it can cost more in the long run but it may help keep some people highly motivated to see whole balances gone.

[takeshi74]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Trying to reduce utilzation on my CC, who should I pay first?

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If utilization is the primary concern then calculate utilization on each card.  Determine how your allocation of payments would reduce utilization on each card and adjust as desired.  I find a spreadsheet very helpful for this since you can set up the calculations and just type in different payment amounts to see the changes to utilization.

Eyeballing the utilization in the OP I'd suggest focusing on utilization first.  You can worry about APR and paying off cards once you've dropped utilization on the cards.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Also, should I PIF or carry a balance (of 20% of less I assume).

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You never need to carry a balance for scoring purposes.

Suggested max is 30%.  That's all you really need to worry about generally.  If applying for credit you may want to optimize by allowing only one balance to report at 10% or  less.

Allowing a balance to report and carrying a balance are two entirely different things.  If your card has a balance on the date it reports (statement date for most) then a balance will report and you can PIF by due date to avoid interest.  If you want to reduce the reported balance then pay prior to report date and then PIF after.

[Anonymous]

Pay the store cards off first as they probably have the highest interest.

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Which should I pay first?

Trying to reduce utilzation on my CC, who should I pay first? Also, should I PIF or carry a balance (of 20% of less I assume). Thanks in advance for any help.

Victoria Secret: Bal 560., limit 1050 Stop using. After all the others are paid off, pay heavily. 4

Express: Bal 170, limit 250 Stop using. After the CapOne's are paid, pay heavily. 3

Capitol One: Bal 250, limit 300 Pay down heavily, then stop carrying a balance and PIF. 2
Bal 115, limit 300 Pay off immediately. Use only for Daily Expenses and PIF frequently. 1

My plan was to pay the minimum on most and pay down one card at a time with any extra.

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[Anonymous]

If I was a comenity shareholder, id agree with the above.

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:
If I was a comenity shareholder, id agree with the above.

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The open balance numbers involved are too small to worry about what the specific interest rate might be. The CapOne rates are probably pretty close to the VS rates anyway, and you can't use VS at the grocery store or gas station.

[Anonymous]

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@disdreamin wrote:
I'll add a thought, from the Dave Ramsey school of cc payoff. It may not make financial sense (you'll potentially pay more in the long run, depending on interest rates on your various balances) but it can make emotional sense to pay off the lowest balance first, then the next lowest and so on - always rolling everything you've been paying on the lowest balance card up to the next lowest once the bottom one is paid . The thought is that knocking out low balances gives incentive to keep going.

I believe it is termed a snowball approach, where you pay more and more to the next lowest balance as you move up the ladder, and it can be very motivating for some people. It is an alternative if *you* think motivation might be an issue. Again, it can cost more in the long run but it may help keep some people highly motivated to see whole balances gone.

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I have been doing this and it works! Im a goal oriented person so for me getting each card paid off one at a time is motivation not to use the card again and to keep paying cards off so I can get to my goal of zero credit card debt.