@takeshi74 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I have a $2000 balance from a 24% card I would love to transfer.
Is this the only card you have? Is this the only credit account that you have? What's the revolving utilziation on that card? Revolving utilization is simply balance(s) / limit(s)/ Both the revovling utilization for each of your cards and your overall revolving utilization for all your cards matter. As an example, if that card has a $10,000 limit:
$2,000 / $10,000 = 20%
General advice is do not exceeed 30%. If you have hiigh revolving utilization then don't rely on opening a new account to solve your problem. The revolving utilization on the new card you intend to transfer to will matter as well. If you're looking to transfer your $2K balance and his $8K balance that's a total of $10K, Ideally you'd want a new card with a limit of at least $30K. If you can't do that then you'd need to pay down the revolving utilization as quickly as possible on the new card after transferring the balances.
For the most part I very much agree with all of Takeshi's points, except I do have a slightly different take on the above comment. All of that is very much true in general for maintaining good credit, but it sounds like the OP's personal priorities and situation may be different than strictly maintaining good credit (please correct me if I'm wrong).
You're not planning to be on the mortgage right, just your boyfriend? In that case your credit score isn't relevant to the mortgage, and while I would never actively encourage someone to max out a credit card and tank their scores, if getting the mortgage and getting into a safer neighborhood is your priority than that could certainly be extenuating circumstances.
Are you concerned with doing anything else with your credit in the near term like getting a car loan, personal loan, etc.? Hurting your score through utilization, and even triggering balance chasing AA (adverse action) can be a fairly short-term, correctable problem as long as you're able to pay off the balance while it's under the 0% terms. Missing a payment, having a late payment, or other derogatory accounts is much more serious and takes much longer to correct (often requiring you to wait 7 years for the bad stuff to age off). By contrast your utilization has no 'memory' component in the scoring; it's just whatever your utilization is in that moment. So if you have it at 80% for awhile, absolutely that's going to be terrible for your credit and may cause AA that could have other negative effects, but from a utilization standpoint the damage is completely erased once the balance is paid off.
So I would say focus on what makes the most financial sense in terms of actual cash dollars as well as what makes the most sense for your family. Sacrificing your credit score in the short term (in a way that is relatively easy to fix if you have funds) for the sake of helping your partner qualify for a mortgage and getting yourselves and child into a safer environment doesn't sound like the worst idea to me, especially if it's truly only affecting your score on paper and not costing you money.
Of course there are a lot of caveats like the security and stability of your relationship, whether or not you have any other solutions, and of course whether or not you will be able to pay the balance in full before the 0% terms expire (and remember your expenses are likely to rise with the purchase of a new home and as homeowners having a solid emergency fund in place becomes more important than ever. So make sure to budget for that and crunch the numbers).
Anyway, I realize that's not what you asked and all this is just a side point, but I'm just saying you may possibly feel justified in maxing out the new card if you can only get approved for around 10-12K or something instead of the 30K+ you'd need for maintaining good credit. It's a very important personal decision that you'll need to weigh in the larger context of your life.
Anyway, good luck with whatever your decide and I hope things work out!
We have a 2 year old and I want out of this place. I am trying to figure out how I can find out if I will be able to qualify for enough credit, and if there are any cards that have 0% interest for a period of time. I have a $2000 balance from a 24% card I would love to transfer. Does a 0% intro APR mean 0% interest?? Chase Freedom Unlimited card has that on their details.
