Credit advice personal loan vs credit cards?

[molitar]

I just purchased and moved into the home and found there was more repairs than was thought.  So much that I had to max my credit cards to pay for it all as the downpayment for the home was already $8k.  Now  my question is would it be better to go get a personal card vs having maxed out cards?  I put over $3500.00 on my credit cards total.

Please advise as I have money lenders that will loan me money immediately as I did this in the past with smaller amount.

[mmmlive1999]

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@molitar wrote:

I just purchased and moved into the home and found there was more repairs than was thought.  So much that I had to max my credit cards to pay for it all as the downpayment for the home was already $8k.  Now  my question is would it be better to go get a personal card vs having maxed out cards?  I put over $3500.00 on my credit cards total.

Please advise as I have money lenders that will loan me money immediately as I did this in the past with smaller amount.

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Well I  would base my decision on procuring lowest interest rate available. Do you have any cards with a 0% APR? If so, you could go that route as long as you  are not worried about high utilization on your cards and you could pay it back within 12-18 mos.

What kinds of interest rates are the "lenders" charging you?

[molitar]

I have been rebuilding my credit for the last couple years and was finally able to be approved for a mortgage and purchased my own home.   The interest from the lender is may a couple points higher.  But I was figuring that maxed out credit card vs a personal loan would most likely be worse than a loan of say $4000 or so.

$ 648.47    available $ 781.53    Interest 29.99%

$1345.12   available $ 273.69    Interest 22.24%

$ 829.97   available $ 332.84    Interest 14.99%
$ 186.72    available $ 268.34    Interest 19.80%

$6,277.34  available $  22.01     Interest 22.90%

As you can see I have nearly every card maxed out.  Is this worse than having a personal loan as this leaves me with almost no credit available at all from what I understand for the debt to credit ratio.

Also I have a second question some of the disputes I did a year ago still show in dispute status from what I understand from the mortgage lender at least amount was low enough they could ignore them 4 accounts.  But how do I find out what 4 accounts and get them cleared from dispute as the lender stated that being locked in dispute is worse than unpaid.  They should of came off in about 6 weeks from dispute status.

[RobertEG]

Contining to carry credit card balances at or near the credit limit is a potential double-whammy.

First, scoring of % util is not purely linear, meaning that very high % utils have a much higher scoring impact.

Second, carryihg a high % util over an extended period makes your current creditos very worried about increased risk, and can lead to their reducing your credit limit as the debt is paid down.  That means than future reduction on your debt balance could result in little or no decrease in % util due to a concurrent reduction in CL.

I would avoid continuing to carry those high utils, and instead get a personal loan.

[mmmlive1999]

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@molitar wrote:

I have been rebuilding my credit for the last couple years and was finally able to be approved for a mortgage and purchased my own home.   The interest from the lender is may a couple points higher.  But I was figuring that maxed out credit card vs a personal loan would most likely be worse than a loan of say $4000 or so.

$ 648.47    available $ 781.53    Interest 29.99%

$1345.12   available $ 273.69    Interest 22.24%

$ 829.97   available $ 332.84    Interest 14.99%
$ 186.72    available $ 268.34    Interest 19.80%

$6,277.34  available $  22.01     Interest 22.90%

As you can see I have nearly every card maxed out.  Is this worse than having a personal loan as this leaves me with almost no credit available at all from what I understand for the debt to credit ratio.

Also I have a second question some of the disputes I did a year ago still show in dispute status from what I understand from the mortgage lender at least amount was low enough they could ignore them 4 accounts.  But how do I find out what 4 accounts and get them cleared from dispute as the lender stated that being locked in dispute is worse than unpaid.  They should of came off in about 6 weeks from dispute status.

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Consolidation is definitely needed, maybe use the personal loan to pay down the cards as well. That way your credit improves, all of those maxed out cards are killing your scores .

[molitar]

Thanks that was just what I was thinking and wanted to verify.  I will get the personal loan.

[molitar]

Ok I got approved for a $5000.00 loan for consolidation.  Does the payment amount I plan look the best to get all cards under enough?

Chase                $  648.47  available $  781.53    Interest 29.99%        pay $ 100.00
Chase Amazon   $ 1345.12  available $  273.69    Interest 22.24%       pay $ 700.00    
Capital One        $  829.97  available $  332.84    Interest 14.99%        pay  $ 300.00
Capital One        $  186.72  available $  268.34    Interest 19.80%        pay  $   0.00
Capital One        $6,277.34  available $   22.01    Interest 22.90%        pay  $4000.00

Does this look like a good balance to pay off or is it better to put it all on all the small ones or the single large one?

[Anonymous]

Honestly I think you should focus less on your score, and more on reducing your debt. In the long run that will help your score, and you are in no position to take on any additional debt right now. 

Therefore I think you should apply the money to your highest interest card first, pay it entirely. So pay off the Chase cards entirely. Then start working on the 22.9% Capital One card until it is paid off. Make minimum payments on the rest until the debt is all gone. Try and avoid carrying ANY balance on your cards when you are done.

Edit: Actually your interest is slightly lower on the Chase Amazon than your Capital One card, so pay the 29.9% Chase entirely and put the rest into the 22.9% CapOne. Make minimum payments on the rest until the higher cards are fully paid down.

[Anonymous]

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@molitar wrote:

Ok I got approved for a $5000.00 loan for consolidation.  Does the payment amount I plan look the best to get all cards under enough?

Chase                $  648.47  available $  781.53    Interest 29.99%        pay $ 100.00
Chase Amazon   $ 1345.12  available $  273.69    Interest 22.24%       pay $ 700.00    
Capital One        $  829.97  available $  332.84    Interest 14.99%        pay  $ 300.00
Capital One        $  186.72  available $  268.34    Interest 19.80%        pay  $   0.00
Capital One        $6,277.34  available $   22.01    Interest 22.90%        pay  $4000.00

Does this look like a good balance to pay off or is it better to put it all on all the small ones or the single large one?

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I would pay off both chase cards because of the interest rates and the fact you could pay them off completely. that leaves you 3k to pay on the others. I would pay off the smallest Capital One card then put the reston the one you owe 6.2k on. This way you are freeing up 3 payments that you're currently paying and getting the scariest debt knocked down considerably. 

I don't know about your income, but after that is done paying off the big one should be your biggest concern. Pay 10 more than minimum on the other card till you get the big one down where you can afford to pay down the smaller one. A big part of this is you can't start using the cards again till all the debt on the cards is gone and you have that loan paid off. You can't afford to mess that up. When you are at that point your credit will be much better. I can garantee it will be worth it. 

[molitar]

Yeah I always paid extra on my cards.. on the biggest one I was down to about $2300 before I had to the home repairs after paying that large down payment for the home.  Reason it got out of hand.   That is also what I did last time I borrowed $3200 and paid down almost all my cards before and had that loan paid off.   My main card before than was around $81 a month and I was paying $100 a month on it.. and doing the same on all the other cards.   So before this move I only had about $3700 on all the cards total now got to get that back down again.  2 of the cards were completely paid off before this all.