Need help with my credit

[SouthJamaica]

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@lyro wrote:

Ok, so I am pretty new to building credit and my oldest account will be 2 years this month, which I am told is a good thing. I have 5 total accounts open and my debt ratio is high at 94%. My total debt of all accounts combined is about $3800. I have 1 dell preferred account($2,000), 2 capital one cards ($500 ea.), 1 Surge Card ($500), and 1 card from Credit One Bank ($500). I know I need to get the debt ratio down and have $1,000, I am thinking to pay of 2 of the $500 cards but am unsure which ones, should I do both capital one cards or 1 capital one card and 1 non-capital one card? Does it matter which I pay in full? And then after I pay these I will make payments to bring the other cards up. I have never missed a payment on any of my accounts but opening those last 3 accounts made my score drop and the Credit One Bank card charged a cash advance fee when there was little credit limit available and the balance went negative, so my score dropped drastically from the new accounts and the negative balance, from the mid 600's all the way down to 531. Will paying 2 cards off and my oldest account when it turns 2 years bring me back to the 600's?

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Is your priority saving money or improving credit score?

1. If saving money, pay off the highest interest rate cards first.

2. If improving score, pay everything down to 79%, then pay everything down to 69%, and so on, until you get everything down to 29%, at which point start zeroing out accounts until all but one is at zero.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Also why did you maxed out your CC? Didn't it occurred to you it might be a bad idea?

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We are in the forum to discuss financial matters and to help each other, not to judge.

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Gotta love that Musiclover

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@lyro wrote:

Ok, so I am pretty new to building credit and my oldest account will be 2 years this month, which I am told is a good thing. I have 5 total accounts open and my debt ratio is high at 94%. My total debt of all accounts combined is about $3800. I have 1 dell preferred account($2,000), 2 capital one cards ($500 ea.), 1 Surge Card ($500), and 1 card from Credit One Bank ($500). I know I need to get the debt ratio down and have $1,000, I am thinking to pay of 2 of the $500 cards but am unsure which ones, should I do both capital one cards or 1 capital one card and 1 non-capital one card? Does it matter which I pay in full? And then after I pay these I will make payments to bring the other cards up. I have never missed a payment on any of my accounts but opening those last 3 accounts made my score drop and the Credit One Bank card charged a cash advance fee when there was little credit limit available and the balance went negative, so my score dropped drastically from the new accounts and the negative balance, from the mid 600's all the way down to 531. Will paying 2 cards off and my oldest account when it turns 2 years bring me back to the 600's?

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Some key strategies to consider in order of importance are:

1) Paying down all cards as needed to get utilization under "max out" condition for every card - I peg max out at 90%.

2) Paying off one card so less than 100% of cards show a balance.

3) Getting balances down on remaining cards to under 70%

4) Getting balances down on remaining cards to under 50%

5) Paying off additional low limit cards to get total reporting balances down to 50% or less (down to 2 cards in your case)

6) Pay down to reduce reporting balance on remaining cards to under 30%..

See below for potential paydown example based on your data that covers steps1 & 2 above:

***	Card limit	Balance	Utilization %	Payment	New balance	Utilization %
	$2,000	$1,760	88.0%	$185	$1,575	78.8%
	$500	$500	100.0%	$105	$395	79.0%
	$500	$500	100.0%	$105	$395	79.0%
	$500	$500	100.0%	$105	$395	79.0%
	$500	$500	100.0%	$500	$0	0.0%
Totals	$4,000	$3,760	94.0%	$1,000	$2,760	69.0%

A few key results from this paydown:

1) Overall utilization is now below 70% - should see a score boost from this.

2) No cards in "max out" territory even for those who believe max out might be as low as 80%

3) Not all accounts showing a balance.

[lyro]

Awesome! Thanks again to everyone for your support and @thomas_thumb for the chart, I will get the payment to the cards ASAP! And then hopefully secure another $1k in the next month or so while still paying every card on time.

[Anonymous]

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@lyro wrote:

@awesome! Thanks again to everyone for your support and @Thomas_Thumb for the chart, I will get the payment to the cards ASAP! And then hopefully secure another $1k in the next month or so while still paying every card on time.

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If you get the additional 1k in credit, lock the card up in safedeposit box, along with the one the other poster suggest to pay down to zero. Maybe even lock them all away. Out of sight out of mind.

Best thing to do is pretend you dont have any avilable credit until you pay all of your cards down to 0$.

I am sorry this has happened to you. I always pretend I dont have extra credit, and use my cards like debit cards. (IE only charge what I know I have in the bank and can pay off)

Hope these suggestions are some help OP.

We all hit hard times, share peace and love everyone!

[greent]

I would pay off two accounts. Then combine what the two payments were and add to the other account. I think you'll save in interest. I say just pay off all your other cards and always PIF. This way you have fun using them but don't end up with debt.

[Anonymous]

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@lyro wrote:

Thanks everyone for your support and help! Here are how my cards currently look:

Capital One Platinum MasterCard (Secured) - Credit Limit: $500 | Balance: $484.98 | Available Credit: $15.02

Capital One Platinum MasterCard - Credit Limit: $500 | Balance: $497.92 | Available Credit: $2.08

Surge Card - Credit Limit: $500 | Balance: $460.27 | Available Credit: $4 (not sure why it says that, guess they haven't updated yet?)

Credit One - Credit Limit: $500 | Balance: $507.00 | Available Credit: -$7

Dell Preferred - Credit Limit: $2,000 | Balance: $1,792.24 | Available Credit: 207.76

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In this scenario with $1000 to pay I'd drop $200 on each and sock drawer them all

(Edit)

And now that I've read Thomas_Thumb's post I say disregard mine completely and use the wisdom he's given you!