Large lump sum payment- which card?

[alexak]

I sure hope I'm posting this in the correct forum!! I have a large-ish lump sum payment I am able to make to one of my high balance credit cards-- about $800. Which card should I put it towards?

1) Balance of $2200/2300 at 24.45% apr
Or
2) Balance of $8888/9500 at 21.49% apr
Or
3) Balance of 2900/3200 at 22% apr

I'm leaning towards the highest balance... what are your thoughts? I'm trying to get my balances under 50% utilization so I can try to apply for the Slate card (and finally pay these suckers off for good).

Thanks in advance!!

[SouthJamaica]

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@alexak wrote:
I sure hope I'm posting this in the correct forum!! I have a large-ish lump sum payment I am able to make to one of my high balance credit cards-- about $800. Which card should I put it towards?

1) Balance of $2200/2300 at 24.45% apr
Or
2) Balance of $8888/9500 at 21.49% apr
Or
3) Balance of 2900/3200 at 22% apr

I'm leaning towards the highest balance... what are your thoughts? I'm trying to get my balances under 50% utilization so I can try to apply for the Slate card (and finally pay these suckers off for good).

Thanks in advance!!

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Pay

$175 towards the $2300 card

$525 towards the $9500 card

$100 towards the $3200 card

[alexak]

Never even thought to split it up! Awesome thank you!

[SouthJamaica]

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@alexak wrote:
Never even thought to split it up! Awesome thank you!

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Any time

[Revelate]

I'd pay the entire $800 to my highest APR and continue hammering it till it was zero and then start the next.  Will take a while to make any significant dent in the debt to shift your FICO much, so I'd recommend doing the smartest thing financially which is stop as much interest bleeding as possible which is all $800 to that 24 and change APR card.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like the OP is more concerned in getting approved for another card than what he's paying in interest, meaning that optimizing his credit score at this time is priority #1 in order to get that Slate card and I assume use it for BT purposes which would then stop the interest issue.  That said, I think SJ's plan sounds fine but I agree with Rev that while $800 is nice to pay down, it's still a relatively small amount next to those balances you are trying to tackle so scoring wise you may not achieve all too much.

[alexak]

While I am partially concerned about getting approved for another card, my biggest concern is getting my utilization down on these cards. I figured the best way to get these paid off for good is pay them down enough that I could get a balance transfer card so I can finish paying them off without having interest piling up.

I was hoping to have made a bigger dent in paying them down by now but the interest is killing me.

[SouthJamaica]

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@alexak wrote:
While I am partially concerned about getting approved for another card, my biggest concern is getting my utilization down on these cards. I figured the best way to get these paid off for good is pay them down enough that I could get a balance transfer card so I can finish paying them off without having interest piling up.

I was hoping to have made a bigger dent in paying them down by now but the interest is killing me.

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90% is considered maxed out for scoring purposes, so getting each card below 90% should be the first priority, and $800 happens to be just the right amount to take you there.

[Anonymous]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@alexak wrote:
While I am partially concerned about getting approved for another card, my biggest concern is getting my utilization down on these cards. I figured the best way to get these paid off for good is pay them down enough that I could get a balance transfer card so I can finish paying them off without having interest piling up.

I was hoping to have made a bigger dent in paying them down by now but the interest is killing me.

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90% is considered maxed out for scoring purposes, so getting each card below 90% should be the first priority, and $800 happens to be just the right amount to take you there.

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In fact you will find scoring breaks at each multiple of 10% - so once you get them under 90%, next goal is under 80% and so on - once you have them down to 50% would be the time to look at paying one or more completely off

This is all assuming you are not able to refinance, of course - which you should be able to do somewhere around 60%-80%.  You can try to do this to a BT card, but it may be a smarter move to use a personal loan to get the money off your revolving balances entirely (installment debt hurts you a lot less than revolving)

Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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In fact you will find scoring breaks at each multiple of 10% - so once you get them under 90%, next goal is under 80% and so on - once you have them down to 50% would be the time to look at paying one or more completely off

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Are you certain about this?  I've always understood the break points to be every 20% starting with 90%, so it would then be 70%, 50%, 30% and 10%.