Which Credit Cards Should I pay down below 30%

[Anonymous]

I have four credit card accounts that are maxed out.

3 are $12k each, 1 is $30k.

I have gotten some money and so can make payment and reduce the balances.

I do not have enough to get all accounts below 30% (Debt to Line), But can make some
accounts under 30% and the rest below 50%.

Which scenario improves my credit score the most?

Make the three smaller accounts below 30 %, and the larger account below 50%.

or

Make the larger account below 30%, and the smaller accounts below 50%

Please advise?

[BronzeTrader]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have four credit card accounts that are maxed out.

3 are $12k each, 1 is $30k.

I have gotten some money and so can make payment and reduce the balances.

I do not have enough to get all accounts below 30% (Debt to Line), But can make some
accounts under 30% and the rest below 50%.

Which scenario improves my credit score the most?

Make the three smaller accounts below 30 %, and the larger account below 50%.

or

Make the larger account below 30%, and the smaller accounts below 50%

Please advise?

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I'd want to drop down the % on all of them, better than one is 5% and one is 85%.  You are penalized for the highest utilization %.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have four credit card accounts that are maxed out.

3 are $12k each, 1 is $30k.

I have gotten some money and so can make payment and reduce the balances.

I do not have enough to get all accounts below 30% (Debt to Line), But can make some
accounts under 30% and the rest below 50%.

Which scenario improves my credit score the most?

Make the three smaller accounts below 30 %, and the larger account below 50%.<--this one

or   z

Make the larger account below 30%, and the smaller accounts below 50%

Please advise?

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[grillandwinemaster]

I'm going to go against popular opinion here...

You have over 65k in credit card debt! If you did not "come into" this money, would you have been able to pay off your cards in the next 12-18 months? 

If the answer is no, you have bigger problems to consider than a credit score. 

You don't mention how much money you have available, and I'm too lazy to do the math, but I would bring as many accounts down to zero as possible. 

Then focus on making larger payments to the remaining accounts.  

I would rather have less accounts to pay off. Ultimately, your going to owe the same amount inn either scenario. But having less accounts owing, inn my opinion is less psychologically stressing!

Best credit wishes to you!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply.

The question still remains unanswered. But lets posit three scenarios now versus two.

A. All accounts paid off by the same percentage.

B. Multiple Smaller accounts at 30 %, with the larger account at 50%

C. Or largest account at 30%  with muliple accounts at 50%

Which scenario works best to affect FICO score?

And yes, we already know, that paying everything off totally, is the best but thats not going to happen in the near future.

A, B or C can and will happen this week. Which of those is best for FiCo score?

[AverageJoesCredit]

C

[Anonymous]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have four credit card accounts that are maxed out.

3 are $12k each, 1 is $30k.

I have gotten some money and so can make payment and reduce the balances.

I do not have enough to get all accounts below 30% (Debt to Line), But can make some
accounts under 30% and the rest below 50%.

Which scenario improves my credit score the most?

Make the three smaller accounts below 30 %, and the larger account below 50%.<--this one

or   z

Make the larger account below 30%, and the smaller accounts below 50%

Please advise?

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You were answered......see in red above. 

[gardini51]

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@grillandwinemaster wrote:

I'm going to go against popular opinion here...

You have over 65k in credit card debt! If you did not "come into" this money, would you have been able to pay off your cards in the next 12-18 months? 

If the answer is no, you have bigger problems to consider than a credit score. 

You don't mention how much money you have available, and I'm too lazy to do the math, but I would bring as many accounts down to zero as possible. 

Then focus on making larger payments to the remaining accounts.  

I would rather have less accounts to pay off. Ultimately, your going to owe the same amount inn either scenario. But having less accounts owing, inn my opinion is less psychologically stressing!

Best credit wishes to you!

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I would almost have to agree here. I did some quick math based on the numbers given. Seems that there is about 66k in credit card debt and the poster has come in to about 40k in money. If it were me, I would pay off the 3 12k cards first, then I would pay the extra 4k towards the last one. Then I would more than likely look into some sort of personal loan to get just to lower the interest rate. After doing all this, put all 4 credit cards in a lockbox and hide it. But on the other hand if you were to try for a personal loan it would be beneficial to boost your score a little, so paying the 3 down to under 30% and then the last one to 50% would be the better strategy for a score bump to try and qualify for a better rate.

[Anonymous]

pay off as much as you can but still leave money leftover so you wont have to used the cards you just made payments on its best to pay them off over time in a smart way that you can maintain and improve you score as well and not get caught in that whole pay off and turn around re used trap.

[Anonymous]

B is slightly better because you'll have 3 accounts reporting under 30% as opposed to one. But you'll still be at 40% aggregate util... so don't expect such a big bump in points.  Maybe 15-20 points depending on your current scores. Once you get aggregate util under 30% you'll see more points. Once at least half your credit cards report 0 balance you'll see even more points.