Which to pay down for best results?

[Anonymous]

I have three credit cards with balances, one open and two closed.  I have $1000 to use towards them.  Where should I put the money to get make the most impact?

BoA (closed)

limit: 3500

balance: 893

GEMB (closed)

limit: 1800

balance: 1480

NFCU (open)

limit: 7500

balance: 4200

Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have three credit cards with balances, one open and two closed.  I have $1000 to use towards them.  Where should I put the money to get make the most impact?

BoA (closed)

limit: 3500

balance: 893

GEMB (closed)

limit: 1800

balance: 1480

NFCU (open)

limit: 7500

balance: 4200

Thanks in advance!

---

My knee jerk reaction on this is to put the full $1000 on NFCU.  They're open and you'll want to keep them happy - I'd pull that utilization down as fast as possible.

Additionally, if you paid off BofA entirely, they would no longer be included in your utilization calculations (closed accounts with no balance no longer count in utilization if I remember correctly - someone will correct me if I'm wrong).  Losing that CL in your utilization calculations would hurt you at this point.

Some more thoughtful folks will chime in, I'm sure.

Congrats on being able to pay down!  That's great!

edited for correction

[RobertEG]

It depends on the results you are seeking.  Avoiding out-of-the-pocket interest would suggest paying the highest %APR cards first.  Fico improvements gets into a more detailed consideration of % util of indiv cards, which usually (but not always) leads to paying down the higher % util cards first, since they generally have the most impact on overall score.