What Would You Do?

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Timothy!

[Anonymous]

Your welcome and good luck-

Come visit often an give us updates on your progress.

[Anonymous]

Will do!

[Anonymous]

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@SmartCookie wrote:

I'd start with BTs for your BOA LOC from your your Merrill Lynch (xfer around 5.8k)and Discover Motiva cards (xfer around  5.9k).  If you have a BoA checking account... have them both just cut the BT as a check and deposit it there directly so that you can pay the BoA LOC directly.  That will leave around 1.2 k left on the BoA LOC that you can either BT to AMEX BLUE or just pay off... depending on any BT fees it may be cheaper for you to leave it.  I would also consider BTing as much of your AAFES as will fit to your AMEX and the remainder to your LFCU.

If you start this way, it would be best to see what CLIs you can get from the cards you are BT to BEFORE you BT.  Does not hurt to call and ask if they can increase you with just a soft INQ.  I would not take a hard INQ.  At that time, also ask if they have any more BT promos which might be better for you.  Tell them you are considering moving a large amount and are trying to see what company has the best offer. 

At a later time I would also suggest you call all of your other cc co's and ask the same regarding a CLI with just a soft INQ or account review.  This will help with your scores and UTI... but that is just secondary.

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So, in reference to the above post, I should: Put $11.7K on my Merrill Lynch and Discover Cards via BT, $1200 on my AMEX Card via BT and then $3300 of the AAFES Card on my LFCU Card via BT (which brings down my AAFES Card to 50% utilizaion)? Am I correct? Sounds about right? Sounds good? :-) Keep in mind the ML and DISC cards will be at something like 96% utilization after that! Wow!

[Anonymous]

^

[Anonymous]

SC???

[SmartCookie]

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kino1161 wrote:

So, in reference to the above post, I should: Put $11.7K on my Merrill Lynch and Discover Cards via BT, $1200 on my AMEX Card via BT and then $3300 of the AAFES Card on my LFCU Card via BT (which brings down my AAFES Card to 50% utilizaion)? Am I correct? Sounds about right? Sounds good? :-) Keep in mind the ML and DISC cards will be at something like 96% utilization after that! Wow!

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Essentially.  And as for UTI, as I said... that's secondary.  This is a big enough issue to say put the UTI and FICO scoring on the back burner for the short term.  The most important thing right now is to get this debt in an optimal holding pattern preparing for payoff.

Now with BTing the BOA LOC to Merrill Lynch and Discover, the $11.7 total is approximate.  You may want to decrease or increase slightly once you have determined what the added BT fees will be and approximate any interest.  The last thing you want to do is to go over limit... leave a bit of room.  Estimate that there will be $1.2k leftover that will not fit on those 2 cards via BT.  Now with that... as I mentioned it may be more cost effective to leave it there and pay it off first vs pay a BT fee.  You have to crunch some numbers.  If you do BT, it should go onto your AMEX BLUE.

Dependent on if you do the remainder of the BOA LOC onto AMEX BLUE or not, you might want to just shove all you can from the AAFES onto AMEX BLUE and forgo putting anything left onto LFCU or not.  I should ask... are any of the cc co's that have the good rates for the BTs we are discussing offering a 0 BT fee? 

So yep you are clear on what I am suggesting.  It is very important as I mentioned to crunch all the numbers so that a BT fee doesn't wind up negating the INT savings.  Let me know who if any is offering a 0 BT fee.

Message Edited by SmartCookie on 12-18-2007 10:27 PM

[Anonymous]

SC,

ML is offering a 0% BT for 12 months, AMEX is 4.9% BT for the life of the balance and DISC is 3.9%  until Nov 2011.  The LFCU BT rate is always 7.9%.