@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I am trying to raise my scores and pay off debt as quickly as possible so we can buy a house. My initial focus was getting everything below 90%. Now I'm not sure if I should pay off the smaller cards before tackling the large balances...What is the best strategy?
Balance/Limit
Barclays 1584/1800
Cap One 527/600
Cap One 1277/1450
Credit Union 4400/5000
Target 589/1000
Overstock 583/2200
Amazon 496/1300
Living Spaces 802/1000
I also paid PFD'd all 3 of my collection accounts. What kind of score bump do you think I will get? Thanks in advance!
The strategy is to get to fewer than half of your cards showing a balance, none over 30% individual UTI, and overall UTI below 10%. It does not matter what path you take to get there, you'll still be at the same train station.
The total of your credit limits is $14350 - so max total you want ~1300 reporting across the board.
You have 8 cards, so we'd want to pay 5 of them to 0,
Barclays 1584/1800 --- max 540; recommend pay to 325 or 540 or 0 or 60
Cap One 527/600 --- pay this to 0
Cap One 1277/1450 --- pay this to 0
Credit Union 4400/5000 --- max 1500; recommend pay to 650 or 1300
Target 589/1000 --- pay this to 0
Overstock 583/2200 --- max 660; recommend to pay to 325 or 110 or 0 -- you can also leave this one alone
Amazon 496/1300 --- pay this to 0
Living Spaces 802/1000 --- pay this to 0
Right now you have 10,258 which is about 71% util. You'll need to spend around 9k across the board to bring it down to optimal levels.
I've listed how I would handle these, with my current income and situation. Without knowing APRs. I assume though, it would be easiest to pay the small ones first so you have more padding with the larger limits. Personally, I'd only let the CU report with the full 1300, as that's going to be the easiest to manage.
You could pay down the Overstock to 0, and keep your 1400 cap1 as one of your main revolvers, but you'd have to spend more up front and have a little less padding. The max reporting on that card would be $435.
