Personal Loan to pay off Credit Card debt??

[Biffman49]

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@0REDSOX7 wrote:

It really varies.

By paying off the debt, your utilization will lower because they will have zero balance.  If you close them, your overall utilization will increase, and your score will decrease as a result.

Take Credit Karma with a grain of salt - mine was off by 148 pts from my true FICO.

No, I know. I was more looking at the tool that shows you benefits of doing certain things. Mine was actually pretty accurate - about 10 points lower than when I recently had it pulled when co-signing for my wife's car loan (long story, we're in middle of Green Card process and bank wouldn't approve since her visa only lasts a few more months, blah blah blah).

[0REDSOX7]

Got ya.

I guess it depends on what you're going to do after the loan.  If you're going to garden for a little bit, then great.

But, I believe cancelling the accounts may cause the drop.

[Scupra]

CK is a good tool to watch for updates, not a good indicator for score, ever. You would normally see a small drop (maybe) for the HP and addition of TL lowering your AAoA but because you are paying all of your utilization off you will more than likely see a major increase. Don't close any of the cards after paying them off, just be responsible with them

[Biffman49]

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@Scupra wrote:

CK is a good tool to watch for updates, not a good indicator for score, ever. You would normally see a small drop (maybe) for the HP and addition of TL lowering your AAoA but because you are paying all of your utilization off you will more than likely see a major increase. Don't close any of the cards after paying them off, just be responsible with them

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Thanks - yeah, I wouldn't close them out. I want to keep the tradeline open so my AAoA remains as high as it can be. I'm assuming a pretty good increase in score, so fingers crossed.

[abzze]

Do you have a car you can refinance?

Here's what I did:

My credit union can fincance upto 115% of the value of the car. I got around 15k in refinance at 5% APR and paid of the stupid credit card debts all at once.