Snowballing in debt...help!

[maiden_girl]

Time to begin rebuilding...

Now I have not completely ruined my credit yet but I'm walking a fine line toward that. My FICO score has been dropping at least 10 points a month due to high UTL and several balances reporting. I went from 720 FICO to around 650 FICO. I'm close the the credit limit on two of my credit cards. I'm trying to simplify my debt and have considered getting a consolidation loan for at my two balances approaching high limit. I have stopped using my credit cards completely. I just need to create a plan to tackle my debt ASAP!

My profile is as follows:

Chase - $4346 open/never late 0% until 1/14

Discover - $1431 open/never late 0% until 12/13

Ashley - $1323 open/never late 0% until 4/14

US Bank - $497 open/never late

Walmart - $473 open/never late

Any suggestions would be helpful! Thanks.

[guiness56]

What are the balances and limits on the cards?  What is your utilization overall?

[TimeToRecover]

My reccomendation pay them in order of interest accruing.

USBank and Walmart first (that will put both of those at 0 util (DO NOT CHARGE ON THEM AGAIN UNTIL ALL PAID OFF)

Then I would tackle Discover and pay it off before that 0% runs out (no need to get extra interest) then Chase and lastly Ashly. 

I would say do not to run them up again.  Only charge what you can pay off unless it is a large purchase or emergency.  interest will kill ya.

that is what would be my plan of attack.  Dont expend any extra till you are caugt up.

[maiden_girl]

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@TimeToRecover wrote:

My reccomendation pay them in order of interest accruing.

USBank and Walmart first (that will put both of those at 0 util (DO NOT CHARGE ON THEM AGAIN UNTIL ALL PAID OFF)

Then I would tackle Discover and pay it off before that 0% runs out (no need to get extra interest) then Chase and lastly Ashly. 

I would say do not to run them up again.  Only charge what you can pay off unless it is a large purchase or emergency.  interest will kill ya.

that is what would be my plan of attack.  Dont expend any extra till you are caugt up.

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Thank you. This seems like the best approach If I don't pay off the balances in the appropriate time frame...would a personal loan be the best route? I don't want to waste a inquiry to be denied you know?

[guiness56]

I disagree.  Only because if you are near maxed out on 2 cards you score will suffer more.

I would pay the 2 cards maxed out to get them out of the danger area then start paying off the others.

[maiden_girl]

Slight update for those of you who like me...are snowballing in a huge about of credit debt. Since my last post I have alternated between using cash and credit. I'm down to using one card now which is my chase freedom (only card company that has been good to me). I've also utlized my reward points to pay down my balances. I have paid off US Bank completely and I no longer have this card in my posession. I have also paid off my Wally Discover card and have sock drawered it due to the fact they are really slow on updating their payment history. It took them exactly 2 weeks to process my payment and show this credit. Hopefully this 0 balance will reflect in my credit report soon and bring my UTL down from 27%!!

As of now, my profile is as follows:

Chase - $4346 open/never late 0% until 1/14

Discover - $1431 open/never late 0% until 12/13

Ashley - $1223 open/never late 0% until 4/14

US Bank - $0 open/never late

Walmart - $0 open/never late

My next course of action is to tackle Discover, Chase, and lately Ashley. I never want to hurt like this again...in the pocket book!

[Shogun]

Sounds like a good plan.  Keep it up!

[silverzgirl]

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@guiness56 wrote:

I disagree.  Only because if you are near maxed out on 2 cards you score will suffer more.

I would pay the 2 cards maxed out to get them out of the danger area then start paying off the others.

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+1. From my old USAA monitoring service, 70+ is not good but 90+ percent is "maxed out." If any of them is there, get them out of there first. 

THen it is up to you. Some like smallest balance first, others like highest interest first. I was knocking out small balances, which tended to have higher interest anyways. However, if any of them are closed, your CL still is used for util. Once you are paid off, you lose that padding. So I stopped the smallest and moved to smallest OPEN accounts.