Credit Pay-Down

[Anonymous]

So, within the last few years I made less than ideal CC spending decisions.

My credit is alright, couple of hits due to a miscommunication with Amazon and them charging a card I dont use (theirs).

Recently came across a windfall of cash, and could easily pay off $6500 out of the 12500 on my discover.  However it will leave me with little cash to fall back on, but will also cut my minimum payment in half (which is currently hurting me) that I can barely make now.

Just looking for sound advice before I do it

[Gunnar419]

You could pay maybe $5,000 toward Discover then keep the rest as a cash cushion. That should still help a lot.

But I think more info from you would be helpful. Do you have other debts? What are the interest rates on your non-mortgage debts? What's the interest rate on your Disvoer card? Are you late on any payments? Have any charge-offs or other credit problems to address?

If Discover is your only problem, go ahead and make that big payment and be happy.

[Anonymous]

I think in total my debt is around 15k.  There some low interest transfers off the discover card, capital one and another.  Not behind on payments at all, just cringe a little everymonth when that $250 bill comes.  I have no issue making extra payments when the money is there, but with everything else its not happening like I would prefre

[Anonymous]

Great plan, OP.  There's some nice features about paying far more than the minimum payment every month.  So my advice is to consider making it a both-and rather than an either-or.

Thus make a big lump-sum payment now, but also keep making the payment that streches you kinda thin each month.  The minimum payment is calculated to keep you in debt for a very long time, paying the CC issuer a lot of interest the whole while. While you are right that the big payment will cause your MP to go way down, keep your payment at the painful $250 level so you can clear yourself as well.

(Also it will look better for you to create a history of always paying substantially more than the MP.)