topic Re: In desperate need of good advice! in Credit Cards

No longer ( YAY! ) in desperate need of good advice!

Ashes — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 04:51:13 GMT

Hello all.

I am very sad and shamed to say that after a series of unfortunately unavoidable events, I am once again below the 600s. All my hard work was obliterated and while it's saddening and upsetting the only thing to do is start over again. Thankfully I can say with ease that I've never been late and never missed a payment but that's as far as the positive goes. My utilization is extremely high at the moment, with the majourity of my cards nearly maxed out. I have over ten inquiries but the main factor affecting my score right now is utilization.

I don't have an awesome job that pays well ( yet! ) so I don't have super high income to make up for the fact that my credit score is in the deplorable range. I would like to get a loan to consolidate ( all I'd need is around 4000.00 - 5000.00 ) but that's nearly impossible with bad credit, high utilization and less than stellar income. I already tried Springleaf and they denied me, go figure. So that was an inquiry wasted. I did manage to get approved for a 1200.00 loan ( 12 months ) with AvantCredit, which is not amazing by any means but is still better than nothing, I suppose. You've got to start somewhere, y'know? I also, on a random whim of desperation, applied for a debt consolidation loan with a credit union in CA ( I live in Texas ) and I am currently awaiting the inevitable denial from that.

The good news is that I'm not really actively pursuing credit so I don't mind gardening to let those wasted inquires wither away. I am just sick and tired of owing so much at once. My plan is to use the loan to pay off/down some of my current debt, make payments on and repay the loan, rinse and repeat.

The credit cards I have are:

Limits are listed first and then balances are second

Capital One Secured - 500.00 | 477.04 - 22.90%

Capital One Platinum - 750.00 | 731.15 - 20.90%

Capital One Playstation - 750.00 | 719.34 - 24.90%

Capital One Orchard - 300.00 | 265.63 - 19.99%

Credit One - 550.00 | 527.85 - 23.90%

First Premier - 800.00 | 780.56 - 36.00%
Walmart - 300.00 | 274.32 - ??

Woman Within - 250.00 | 202.95 - 24.99%

Roamans - 250.00 | 119.97 - 24.99%

Jessica London - 250.00 | 180.99 - 24.99%

King Size - 250.00 | 234.14 - 24.99%

Victoria's Secret - 250.00 | 0.00

Fingerhut - 300.00 | 0.00

Bill Me Later - 600.00 | 575.36

So my question is... what is the best way to attack this? Using the loan from AvantCredit, I was planning to knock off the Walmart and Orchard cards completely. I'm not really pressed to take care of the other store cards, as they are the most managable and most used as well. First Premier and Credit One both have monthly fees so I'm not really too pressed to pay them off at present either because when I pay them off, I plan to close them as well and right now I don't think I should close anything. Bill Me Later doesn't report, so not worried about this and it gets heavily used and paid on anyhow. Is this plan ideal or should I make some alterations?

I do have a couple of negatives on my credit report, one from a cell phone... and one that I could have sworn had fallen off but randomly popped back up recently. But my main focus right now is to slice and dice at my utilization.

Any suggestions and advice that can be given would be greatly appreciated.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Pupeitmeister — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 05:50:01 GMT

@Ashes wrote:
Hello all.

I am very sad and shamed to say that after a series of unfortunately unavoidable events, I am once again below the 600s. All my hard work was obliterated and while it's saddening and upsetting the only thing to do is start over again. Thankfully I can say with ease that I've never been late and never missed a payment but that's as far as the positive goes. My utilization is extremely high at the moment, with the majourity of my cards nearly maxed out. I have over ten inquiries but the main factor affecting my score right now is utilization.

I don't have an awesome job that pays well ( yet! ) so I don't have super high income to make up for the fact that my credit score is in the deplorable range. I would like to get a loan to consolidate ( all I'd need is around 4000.00 - 5000.00 ) but that's nearly impossible with bad credit, high utilization and less than stellar income. I already tried Springleaf and they denied me, go figure. So that was an inquiry wasted. I did manage to get approved for a 1200.00 loan ( 12 months ) with AvantCredit, which is not amazing by any means but is still better than nothing, I suppose. You've got to start somewhere, y'know? I also, on a random whim of desperation, applied for a debt consolidation loan with a credit union in CA ( I live in Texas ) and I am currently awaiting the inevitable denial from that.

The good news is that I'm not really actively pursuing credit so I don't mind gardening to let those wasted inquires wither away. I am just sick and tired of owing so much at once. My plan is to use the loan to pay off/down some of my current debt, make payments on and repay the loan, rinse and repeat.

The credit cards I have are:
Limits are listed first and then balances are second

Capital One Secured - 500.00 | 477.04
Capital One Platinum - 750.00 | 731.15
Capital One Playstation - 750.00 | 719.34
Capital One Orchard - 300.00 | 265.63
Credit One - 550.00 | 527.85
First Premier - 800.00 | 780.56
Walmart - 300.00 | 274.32
Woman Within - 250.00 | 202.95
Roamans - 250.00 | 119.97
Jessica London - 250.00 | 180.99
King Size - 250.00 | 234.14
Victoria's Secret - 250.00 | 0.00
Fingerhut - 300.00 | 0.00
Bill Me Later - 600.00 | 575.36

So my question is... what is the best way to attack this? Using the loan from AvantCredit, I was planning to knock off the Walmart and Orchard cards completely. I'm not really pressed to take care of the other store cards, as they are the most managable and most used as well. First Premier and Credit One both have monthly fees so I'm not really too pressed to pay them off at present either because when I pay them off, I plan to close them as well and right now I don't think I should close anything. Bill Me Later doesn't report, so not worried about this and it gets heavily used and paid on anyhow. Is this plan ideal or should I make some alterations?

I do have a couple of negatives on my credit report, one from a cell phone... and one that I could have sworn had fallen off but randomly popped back up recently. But my main focus right now is to slice and dice at my utilization.

Any suggestions and advice that can be given would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Ashes and Welcome to the forum!!

Shameless Plug here.. ... Perhaps you should check out the http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/The-GREAT-CC-Payoff-Challenge/td-p/2689987

There is a TON of good stuff going on on that thread as far as paying off debt.. and Page 16 has a recent website calculater that is free that is pretty cool too!!

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Creditaddict — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 06:33:01 GMT

Please please please tell me you have not taken the advantage loan yet? Quick google search shows about 80% interest so that will work so far against you... Since income is low and judging by balances either income is so low that you can't actually afford daily expenses so you turn to credit which is now come to end or you can't stop from shopping and you need a break from credit cards because you have harried yourself (I have done and been in both situations, so I say it whole heartedly)

while normally closing something might be a bad idea in your case you need to cut expenses badly so if you could pay the first premier (probably 36%) and close you will cut the huge interest and the monthly fee... It's maxed so leaving open maxed is of no help, so paid and having that monthly payment money for more debt repay will go further for you.

again don't take that loan!!

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Ashes — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 07:20:10 GMT

Creditaddict - Unfortunately I have. It's already a done deal. As for my income, it isn't terribly low ( it's just not on par with the majourity of the users here ) nor are my expenses plentiful. And while I do my share of shopping it's nothing extravagant. In fact my credit cards are actually stored away. I've just run into some personal snags and issues that I just don't feel too comfortable discussing, no offense. If anyone wants to make assumptions on the situation that's fine. The how it happened is not really relevant in my eyes as far as opening this topic is concerned, I beat myself up and judge myself about it enough as it is. I just need to know how I might fix it, that was the purpose of this post. ( I know it's difficult to assess tone over the internet so let me say that I'm not bothered or trying to be a you know what about things, I just want the main focus to be where it needs to be. ) I actually did some calculating and paying off FP will not make my overall monthly payment any lower. It will still be the same, actually and it will decrease my overall limit as well. So it's kind of like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, y'know. Surely, it's more logical, but I don't see it helping the main goal of getting utilization down. But then again, I'm no expert so maybe my understanding is flawed.

EDIT: Thinking about it more now, I could also go the way of taking down one of the big Cap One cards and one of the smaller ones along with it, which should put a nice dent into utilization. There are many so many different ways to approach this.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Crisis — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:26:50 GMT

I am not an expert, but if it were me, I think I would focus on the store cards first, then pay down credit one because it's smaller (and close when PIF).

Walmart - 300.00 | 274.32

Woman Within - 250.00 | 202.95

Roamans - 250.00 | 119.97

Jessica London - 250.00 | 180.99

King Size - 250.00 | 234.14

The reason I'd use this plan of attack is twofold. First, you're rolling a number of bills into one, and seeing the several statements with zero balance would incentivize me to keep on track. Second, those several cards are less likely to be used, and so it'll keep you from using the CC as a crutch, which can happen when someone gets depressed, as by seemingly insurmountable debt.

From what I've read here, credit scores do not have a UTIL memory, and since you aren't actively seeking credit, I'd imagine that UTIL doesn't necessarily need to be high on the list of priorities.

Just my thoughts, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:28:01 GMT

How much can you afford to pay each week / month on these and the loan you took out?

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 10:32:30 GMT

@Ashes wrote:
Hello all.

I am very sad and shamed to say that after a series of unfortunately unavoidable events, I am once again below the 600s. All my hard work was obliterated and while it's saddening and upsetting the only thing to do is start over again. Thankfully I can say with ease that I've never been late and never missed a payment but that's as far as the positive goes. My utilization is extremely high at the moment, with the majourity of my cards nearly maxed out. I have over ten inquiries but the main factor affecting my score right now is utilization.

I don't have an awesome job that pays well ( yet! ) so I don't have super high income to make up for the fact that my credit score is in the deplorable range. I would like to get a loan to consolidate ( all I'd need is around 4000.00 - 5000.00 ) but that's nearly impossible with bad credit, high utilization and less than stellar income. I already tried Springleaf and they denied me, go figure. So that was an inquiry wasted. I did manage to get approved for a 1200.00 loan ( 12 months ) with AvantCredit, which is not amazing by any means but is still better than nothing, I suppose. You've got to start somewhere, y'know? I also, on a random whim of desperation, applied for a debt consolidation loan with a credit union in CA ( I live in Texas ) and I am currently awaiting the inevitable denial from that.

The good news is that I'm not really actively pursuing credit so I don't mind gardening to let those wasted inquires wither away. I am just sick and tired of owing so much at once. My plan is to use the loan to pay off/down some of my current debt, make payments on and repay the loan, rinse and repeat.

The credit cards I have are:
Limits are listed first and then balances are second

Capital One Secured - 500.00 | 477.04
Capital One Platinum - 750.00 | 731.15
Capital One Playstation - 750.00 | 719.34
Capital One Orchard - 300.00 | 265.63
Credit One - 550.00 | 527.85
First Premier - 800.00 | 780.56
Walmart - 300.00 | 274.32
Woman Within - 250.00 | 202.95
Roamans - 250.00 | 119.97
Jessica London - 250.00 | 180.99
King Size - 250.00 | 234.14
Victoria's Secret - 250.00 | 0.00
Fingerhut - 300.00 | 0.00
Bill Me Later - 600.00 | 575.36

So my question is... what is the best way to attack this? Using the loan from AvantCredit, I was planning to knock off the Walmart and Orchard cards completely. I'm not really pressed to take care of the other store cards, as they are the most managable and most used as well. First Premier and Credit One both have monthly fees so I'm not really too pressed to pay them off at present either because when I pay them off, I plan to close them as well and right now I don't think I should close anything. Bill Me Later doesn't report, so not worried about this and it gets heavily used and paid on anyhow. Is this plan ideal or should I make some alterations?

I do have a couple of negatives on my credit report, one from a cell phone... and one that I could have sworn had fallen off but randomly popped back up recently. But my main focus right now is to slice and dice at my utilization.

Any suggestions and advice that can be given would be greatly appreciated.

I would suggest not using them once you pay them off at least for a while and until you have the rest of your balances under control. As you pay them off, stick them in a sock drawer until all of them are paid off or you'll constantly be running in the same place.

I'm sure we'll have more targeted and better advice once we know what you can afford to pay off weekly or monthly on each of these. Like Pup suggested, you should also join his thread he posted. You'll find a lot of great advice and support there.

After you get the majority of these paid off, there is also the chance that you may then be able to apply for a good balance transfer card so that you can get 0% interest for a while to finish paying this all off.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

TiggerDat — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:03:10 GMT

Pay on the ones with the highest interest rates first!

Also pay off Credit One, and First Premier and cancel them. The high fees are hurting, just realize it and think positively about it. Think about every purchase you make. Pay your cards often the moment you get paid.

Have faith, if you try really hard you can do this right! Get to the point where you use the cards with points/rebates/rewards and then PIF every month.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Creditaddict — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:18:09 GMT

@Ashes wrote:
Creditaddict - Unfortunately I have. It's already a done deal. As for my income, it isn't terribly low ( it's just not on par with the majourity of the users here ) nor are my expenses plentiful. And while I do my share of shopping it's nothing extravagant. In fact my credit cards are actually stored away. I've just run into some personal snags and issues that I just don't feel too comfortable discussing, no offense. If anyone wants to make assumptions on the situation that's fine. The how it happened is not really relevant in my eyes as far as opening this topic is concerned, I beat myself up and judge myself about it enough as it is. I just need to know how I might fix it, that was the purpose of this post. ( I know it's difficult to assess tone over the internet so let me say that I'm not bothered or trying to be a you know what about things, I just want the main focus to be where it needs to be. ) I actually did some calculating and paying off FP will not make my overall monthly payment any lower. It will still be the same, actually and it will decrease my overall limit as well. So it's kind of like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, y'know. Surely, it's more logical, but I don't see it helping the main goal of getting utilization down. But then again, I'm no expert so maybe my understanding is flawed.

EDIT: Thinking about it more now, I could also go the way of taking down one of the big Cap One cards and one of the smaller ones along with it, which should put a nice dent into utilization. There are many so many different ways to approach this.

okay, is the $1200 sitting in your checking account? I would PIF it back right now! seriously, your payment is what $200 something a month for 12 months, that's is probably all of your store cards combined plus some!

it's not going to help you in the end, it will cut down in your work and stress of seeing all these maxed out cards each month but won't help in the actual amount of money you need to pay the bills.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Kenny — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:26:18 GMT

Yes, pay the high interest, however the least number of cards with balances the better for your scoring.. then that might qualify you for a CLI with Wal-Mart and that will make your utilization better eventually spring-boarding you for a possible slate card. In fact, I would go ahead and ask all of the cards that SP to give you a CLI to get you out of of this utilization high.

Take it one day at a time! You can get through this! Best of luck!

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Ashes — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 23:35:37 GMT

Crisis - That's actually a really good idea. The reason that the store cards ( not including Walmart ) are all reporting balances is because they all had deferred payment plans on them that all ended around the same time. Bad planning on my part, but I digress. That would get rid of five balances at once and knock 150.00 a month off of my total payment, as well as decreasing my overall utilization by 1012.37.

Creditaddict - It is in my bank account and my monthly payment is 148.00. Yes, that's high, but not so high that I can't afford it. Especially if I take Crisis' advice and pay off all of my store cards with that money. When you take missteps and have less than perfect credit, you just have to pay more for credit than the average human being. It's part of the territory and I'm okay with that. I've been down this road in the past before, though I was young and had no concept of credit at all. I am older now and have a better understanding. Its just that circumstance kind of got in the way and threw all kinds of wrenches into my plans. So I'm back to square one. I dug myself into this hole and now I've got to climb out.

KennyS2006 - I think that Crisis' advice combined with your advice would be a good way to go. I'd knock down a good bit of my utilization and lower my overall monthly payment as well. I know people like to say take out the highest interest cards first, but, as with the snowball effect, I think there's more motivation in taking out the small and working up to the larger balances. And as they're store specific cards, it is less likely for them to be used as the others. So my question is, following this method, how long should I wait before requesting CLIs to further help me decrease utilization? FP and all the store cards other than Walmart have already reported and are thus showing their current high balances. All the Cap One cards, Credit One and Walmart report on the third and the eighth. I guess it only makes sense to wait for everything to report the new balance before requesting because requesting at this point gets an instant denial due to the utilization being extremely high. That is the villian here.

bernhardtra - Thanks for the advice. PS - I love your siggy.

Notfancy - Thanks for the input. I typically pay more than the minimum monthly and can and will make additional payments but... as I mentioned before... circumstance has gotten in the way and led me to this point. There are other things that I am in the process of repairing. I am also currently on leave ( with no more sick hours available ) as well as searching for a new job. Therefore I can't really give an answer when it comes to having an exact budget but I am working on getting to the point where I can.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Chris679 — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:06:19 GMT

Please understand that small balances will pay themselves off with the interest you save by paying the highest interest rates first. Pay the minimum on everything and put every penny into the card with the highest rate. Listing the APR for each account will allow us to give better advice.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Creditaddict — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:09:49 GMT

@Ashes wrote:
Crisis - That's actually a really good idea. The reason that the store cards ( not including Walmart ) are all reporting balances is because they all had deferred payment plans on them that all ended around the same time. Bad planning on my part, but I digress. That would get rid of five balances at once and knock 150.00 a month off of my total payment, as well as decreasing my overall utilization by 1012.37.

Creditaddict - It is in my bank account and my monthly payment is 148.00. Yes, that's high, but not so high that I can't afford it. Especially if I take Crisis' advice and pay off all of my store cards with that money. When you take missteps and have less than perfect credit, you just have to pay more for credit than the average human being. It's part of the territory and I'm okay with that. I've been down this road in the past before, though I was young and had no concept of credit at all. I am older now and have a better understanding. Its just that circumstance kind of got in the way and threw all kinds of wrenches into my plans. So I'm back to square one. I dug myself into this hole and now I've got to climb out.

WAIT FREEZE!!

I'm not saying that some of this advice wouldn't be the path to take if we were not using a CASH ADVANCE LOAN TO DO IT!

you are wiping out $150 worth of payment over 5 cards with the highest interest rate being what 26.99%? using a loan with a $150 monthly payment with an interest rate of AT LEAST 70% if not higher, you tell us??

and your statement in blue is true for those that have done more than a mis spend... you pay more for BK and lates and delinquencies, not because you have spent to much or got behind so you used credit to meet living needs... now you just buckle down and make your situtation better WITHOUT borrowing more, especially if you are going to borrow at 3x your worst rates... that is making a catastrophic financial mistep out of the mistep you already took...

Take a step back, I KNOW it feels so good to pay off 5 cards and make 1 payment but not at triple the cost!

cut your losses on this loan now and pay back the $1300 or what ever it will cost you and lets work on your plan with your current cards and current payments, even if it's just $10 extra a month towards 1 card...

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Creditaddict — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:11:29 GMT

@Chris679 wrote:
Please understand that small balances will pay themselves off with the interest you save by paying the highest interest rates first. Pay the minimum on everything and put every penny into the card with the highest rate. Listing the APR for each account will allow us to give better advice.

since the balances are failry close together and dealing with small amounts of extra money towards payments... Most needs the WINS of paying off faster then they need the savings of a few dollars by doing the snowball of interest rate.... in this case I would do snow ball of balance smallest to highest, not interest rate.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Dubious — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:36:50 GMT

I have to agree with Creditaddict on this one. You want to save $150 in monthly payments only to turn around and pay almost that same amount on that loan? That makes no sense.

And if the interest rate on the loan is even higher than the interest rates of the cards, then it definately doesn't make sense.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Rhaeny — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:47:44 GMT

I have to agree with Creditaddict in that you take the money you got from Avanti and pay them back immediately. As long as you are steadily paying down your balances, your score WILL go up. If you have time to wait on your latest inquiries to fall off, then you have time to NOT pay an absorbant amount of interest to Avanti that otherwise could be going towards your current debt.

Here is a free debt calculator that should help you figure out how to pay your debt down paying the LEAST amount of interest.

http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/debt-reduction-calculator.html

Also as suggested, you should post in debt challenge thread. I am in it and there are so many helpful people over there to help you through this.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/The-GREAT-CC-Payoff-Challenge/td-p/2689987

Good Luck OP!

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Ashes — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:52:15 GMT

In all my configuring the monthly amount of the loan was always included. I was comparing the amount I'd spend monthly if I stuck with my original plan of using the loan to pay off only two of the cards as opposed to the solution offered by Crisis to pay off five of the cards. Without factoring the loan in at all, my monthly payment amount is still higher than it would be with the loan payment amount included, provided that I used it to pay off five of the cards with smaller balances.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Rhaeny — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 01:06:43 GMT

@Ashes wrote:
In all my configuring the monthly amount of the loan was always included. I was comparing the amount I'd spend monthly if I stuck with my original plan of using the loan to pay off only two of the cards as opposed to the solution offered by Crisis to pay off five of the cards. Without factoring the loan in at all, my monthly payment amount is still higher than it would be with the loan payment amount included, provided that I used it to pay off five of the cards with smaller balances.

It appears as if you are only considering the monthly payment and not the consequences of the interest over a period of time. Interest can nickel and dime you to death and you not even know it. So in your case, by taking the loan, you are sacrificing a lower payment in exchange for higher interest. Yes it does probably look good on paper, but the time factor has to be considered as well.

It kind of goes back to the old saying that you can't borrow your way out of debt. Yes I tried it years ago, but I paid for it dearly. I took out a loan that lowered my overall monthly payments. I felt like I had extra money but in reality I didn't. What I had was a super duper extended payment plan that costed me a lot of money...LOL!!!

So I understand how you feel, but at least consider what everyone is telling you.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Chris679 — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 01:25:56 GMT

Yes, thinking in terms of monthly payments is exactly what gets people into financial trouble to begin with. Banish those words from your vocabulary forever.

Re: In desperate need of good advice!

Ashes — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 01:30:27 GMT

I do understand what everyone is saying and I do appreciate the advice. We've all established that the loan was a bad idea but it is done and it will fulfill its purpose. I could have easily opened this thread by vaguely saying that I'd come into 1200.00 and needed advice on the best way to pay down some of my debt but I did not. You may not agree with the method that I have chosen and that's fine. Perfectly fine. To each their own. The fact remains that I made this decision and I will deal with the consequences of it as they come, I don't really have a choice but to.

I do appreciate the time that everyone has taken to analyze the situation and respond. Maybe I should have asked for input before I took action but I didn't. As often as I lurk the board, I could have but it didn't occur to me to ask for input until it was too late. Now...

... completely overlooking the loan being the worst thing in the history of ever that I could have done ( not being sarcastic here, I know it's a really bad choice ), is there anything else that anyone else would like to add in for consideration before I make a move...?