Paying down credit cards and personal lines of credit to raise credit score

[Anonymous]

Hi,

New here. Looking for a credit boost over a 2 month period. What pay downs will get me the most bang for my buck?

Amex personal card - 400.00 balance (29k limit)

I'm an additional user on my wife's Amex card - 9K balance (30k limit) (does being an additional user on someone else's personal credit card account count againsrt my credit utilization percentage?)

Discover Credit Card - 0 balance (21k limit)

Chase Credit Card - 0 balance (15K limit)

Santander Sphere Credit Card - 0 blance (6k limit)

Barclay Apple Rewards  Credit Card -- 788.00 balance (11k limit)

Santander Bank Personal Line Of Credit - 16,000 balance (35k limit)

Santander Bank Personal line of credit - 4,900 (5K limit)

Amex Next Step Loan Installment Account - 16,000 balance left (25K original limit)

A) I'm just not sure how important paying down the Personal Lines Of Credit and the Amex Next Step Installment Loan is in terms of boosing my credit score.

B) Any and all advice will be much appreciated.

Thank you very much

Current credit utilizion is at 15%

But I just used an additional 8k from my Santander Personal Line Of Credit so I imagine the utilization percentage will go up to 20-25%

[Aduke1122]

Pay anything that is even close to max UTI ..the LOC with Santander 4500/5000 would be first ..then the next step Amex ..other than that I would get all the small balances out of the way and paid off.. you want to eventually be at less than 10 % with only 1 cc reporting each mth to get the most bang for your buck.

[FroggieMom]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi,

New here. Looking for a credit boost over a 2 month period. What pay downs will get me the most bang for my buck?

Amex personal card - 400.00 balance (29k limit)

I'm an additional user on my wife's Amex card - 9K balance (30k limit) (does being an additional user on someone else's personal credit card account count againsrt my credit utilization percentage?) Yes, because it it credit available to you and reported on your CR

Discover Credit Card - 0 balance (21k limit)

Chase Credit Card - 0 balance (15K limit)

Santander Sphere Credit Card - 0 blance (6k limit)

Barclay Apple Rewards  Credit Card -- 788.00 balance (11k limit)

Santander Bank Personal Line Of Credit - 16,000 balance (35k limit)

Santander Bank Personal line of credit - 4,900 (5K limit)

Amex Next Step Loan Installment Account - 16,000 balance left (25K original limit)

A) I'm just not sure how important paying down the Personal Lines Of Credit and the Amex Next Step Installment Loan is in terms of boosing my credit score.

B) Any and all advice will be much appreciated.

Thank you very much

Current credit utilizion is at 15%

But I just used an additional 8k from my Santander Personal Line Of Credit so I imagine the utilization percentage will go up to 20-25%

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I would work first on paying down the 4.9K PLOC balance, you have that "maxed" out and it is hurting your score.  Next I would pay the other PLOC that now has a 24K balance after your additional 8K balance you just added, because that now mean that is sitting at 70% util. And the AMEX loan would be 3rd on the list as it is over 50% util.  What kind of interest rate are you paying on these?

[Anonymous]

Amex Next Step Loan 11.9
Santander 35k POL 11.9
Santander 5k POL 8.9%

Do you know if being an additional user on my wife's card counts against my credit utilization %?
She's had her card pre marriage and our lines of credit are not intertwined.

[Aduke1122]

It does count in with your UTI , my AU accounts are figured in mine anuyways

[Anonymous]

I also blanked on my PayPal account
2,700 limit 1,300 balance
Where does this fall on the priority list?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi,

New here. Looking for a credit boost over a 2 month period. What pay downs will get me the most bang for my buck?

Amex personal card - 400.00 balance (29k limit)

pay it to zero

I'm an additional user on my wife's Amex card - 9K balance (30k limit) (does being an additional user on someone else's personal credit card account count againsrt my credit utilization percentage?)

i believe so, but my colleagues will correct me if i'm wrong

Discover Credit Card - 0 balance (21k limit)

Chase Credit Card - 0 balance (15K limit)

Santander Sphere Credit Card - 0 blance (6k limit)

Barclay Apple Rewards  Credit Card -- 788.00 balance (11k limit)

pay it off

Santander Bank Personal Line Of Credit - 16,000 balance (35k limit)

best to pay down to $3000, but definitely want to get it to 9k or less

Santander Bank Personal line of credit - 4,900 (5K limit)

get this to 1400 or less

Amex Next Step Loan Installment Account - 16,000 balance left (25K original limit)

best to get down to around 2k

A) I'm just not sure how important paying down the Personal Lines Of Credit and the Amex Next Step Installment Loan is in terms of boosing my credit score.

very

B) Any and all advice will be much appreciated.

Thank you very much

Current credit utilizion is at 15%

But I just used an additional 8k from my Santander Personal Line Of Credit so I imagine the utilization percentage will go up to 20-25%

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[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I also blanked on my PayPal account
2,700 limit 1,300 balance
Where does this fall on the priority list?

---

high priority to get it to 700 or less

[Anonymous]

Since you've all been so kind and informative I have another question.  It's more specific.

Considering 

Discover 0 bal (21k limit)

Chase 0 bal (15K limit)

Santander Sphere Credit Card 0 bal (6k limit)

Barclay Rewards Card 788 bal (11K limit)

Amex Personal 400.00 bal (29K limit)

Amex user card 9K balance (30K limit)

Santander POL#1 4,900 bal (5k limit)

PatPal (just re checked it 1,500 bal (3,900 limit)

And before I utilized my Santande# 2 POL with racking up another 7k today, the balance was 8,800 (limit 35K)

My Fico scores, as of today, before the new 7K withdrawal from my Santander #2 POL are as fillows

Equifax - 792. Transunion 794. Experian 786

Now let's take into consideration that my Santander #2 POL debt will go up from 8,800 to 15,800 after today...

A) What kind of credit score drop should I expect?

B) And considering my payment history is perfect on all debts, does the suggestion still stand to pay off roughly 30k to at least maintain my current scores?

Obvoiously I'd prefer not to bear the burden of distributing out 30K over the next few days, but my car lease is ending and MBenz financial will be doing a hard pull on my credit around the middle of May.

Thanks in advance!

[FroggieMom]

Given your current scores you will likely not experience a huge drop in scores, but as always with credit..YMMV.  I would think that you could offset the added balance on PLOC#2 by either paying off or paying down to below 10% util of PLOC#1 and maintain your current scores. Paying off the small CC balances will help as well. You could always check with MB Financial to find out what score is needed to qualify for Tier I rates, which is what I'm assuming you are shooting for.  I would think your current scores are there, but you need to factor in they may be using auto enhanced scores which can be completely different from straight FICO scores.  You can get your auto FICO score on here too if you wanted to. 

And Yes, AU cards do count against your total util%, doesn't matter when or how you were added as an AU.