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financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

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iowe
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

Thanks for the kind words. It's a grind for sure. 
My next big milestone will be getting my upcoming balance transfer (from NFCU card to Discover) paid off. I'm going to balance transfer between 9k and 18k over and start attacking that. If I can get enough extra income over the next year I'll throw that at the remaining NFCU balance so that when the Disco card gets back down to a zero balance again there won't be a huge NFCU balance remaining to pay off, if any. 

There is a good chance my student loans could be forgiven through Public Service Loan Forgiveness by the time my revolving balances are all paid off, which would put me completely out of debt by May 2024 if everything goes well. My fingers are crossed on that. 









2024 Goal: To finally be debt free
Message 41 of 66
SlideOrInsert
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

nice work!

 

so what are your current balances?

 apr %limitbalancemin pmt
Auto Loan2.5--??510
Penfed Personal Loan12.8--17737673
Capital One QS22.9400000
Snyc Amazon Prime22600000
Pentagon FCU191000000
Discover18.251930000
NFCU Cash Rewards10.252400020535411
TOTAL 63300382721593

 

@iowe wrote:

My next big milestone will be getting my upcoming balance transfer (from NFCU card to Discover) paid off. I'm going to balance transfer between 9k and 18k over and start attacking that. If I can get enough extra income over the next year I'll throw that at the remaining NFCU balance so that when the Disco card gets back down to a zero balance again there won't be a huge NFCU balance remaining to pay off, if any. 

when was the last time you asked discover for a credit limit increase? before doing the balance transfer might be a good time to ask again. if approved, could give some more utilization padding. usually it can be done online with a soft credit inquiry.

 

upgrade
9/2022
$30000
nfcu
8/2020
$20000
nfcu
12/2018
$30000
bofa
8/2016
$30000
citi
3/2016
$21000
discover
5/2014
$20000
chase
10/2007
$8900
Message 42 of 66
iowe
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

Thanks!
Auto Loan is paid off. Aside from student loans, all of my balances are now zero except for two. I've been thinking about that cli also. I haven't pushed that request button with Discover in a few months now. I intend to try for one after my Disco statement cuts in a few more days, but before requesting a balance transfer. 

The current and only balances remaining are: 

NFCU Cash Rewards $ 20197.98 

Penfed Personal Loan $ 16750.80

 

Balance Transfer options from Discover I think end up working out pretty closely, with slightly more savings if I go the 0% for 12 months route. It tells me to respond by 12/20/22 as the offer could change to different terms, which could be better or maybe could be worse. 

0%  12 Months  5% transfer fee

or 

6.99%  15 Months  0 transfer fee

 

Up until this last payment which paid off Discover, the monthly amount that I was throwing at the Discover card ($1000) + NFCU ($411) + Penfed Personal Loan ($672) adds up to about $2083.00, so that's the monthly snowball amount to work with, give or take $200 depending on how much work I get each month from my 2nd gig.


What I am considering the most at the moment is balance transferring $13300.00 from NFCU CashRewards over to Discover on the 0% 12 mth deal.  This would leave the NFCU card sitting with about a $6900.00 balance (roughly 28% utilization), which I understand is below a fico scoring threshold. Within about 4-5 months of payments my utilization on Discover would fall below 48%, then within 3-4 more months it too would fall below 28%. I'm trying to keep my scores going the right direction while at the same time saving a significant amount on interest using the balance transfer. It helps me psychologically to watch my scores rise throughout the this process. 

 

 

 









2024 Goal: To finally be debt free
Message 43 of 66
SlideOrInsert
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves


@iowe wrote:

Up until this last payment which paid off Discover, the monthly amount that I was throwing at the Discover card ($1000) + NFCU ($411) + Penfed Personal Loan ($672) adds up to about $2083.00, so that's the monthly snowball amount to work with, give or take $200 depending on how much work I get each month from my 2nd gig.


What I am considering the most at the moment is balance transferring $13300.00 from NFCU CashRewards over to Discover on the 0% 12 mth deal.  This would leave the NFCU card sitting with about a $6900.00 balance (roughly 28% utilization), which I understand is below a fico scoring threshold. Within about 4-5 months of payments my utilization on Discover would fall below 48%, then within 3-4 more months it too would fall below 28%. I'm trying to keep my scores going the right direction while at the same time saving a significant amount on interest using the balance transfer. It helps me psychologically to watch my scores rise throughout the this process. 


the balance transfer including int+fees saves ~$500 vs. not doing it.

the balance transfer including int+fees saves ~$90 vs. not doing it.

 

the rough math looks like (13300 bt * 1.05 fee = 13965):

 pmtbalanceutil %pmtbalanceutil % pmtbalanceutil %
 10.2568982901396572vs.10.252019884
1-160679728-11671279866 -13271904479
2-160669528-11671163160 -13271787974
3-160659227-11671046454 -13271670570
4-160648827-1167929748 -13271552165
5-160638427-1167813042 -13271432660
6-160627826-1167696336 -13271312255
7-160617226-1167579630 -13271190750
8-160606525-1167462924 -13271068145
9-160595725-1167346218 -1327944639
10-160584724-1167229512 -1327819934
11-160573724-116711286 -1327694229
12-199558723-112800 -1327567524
13-1327430818    -1327439618
14-1327301813    -1327310713
15-132717177    -132718068
16-13274042    -13274952
17-40800    -49900
           
 total pmttotal int total pmttotal feetotal total pmttotal intdiff
 -7675-369 -13965-665-1034 -21731-1533-91


this is based on $2000 in total monthly payments (1327 cc + 673 loan = 2000). if you can add another hundred or two randomly, might save a month or two.

 

upgrade
9/2022
$30000
nfcu
8/2020
$20000
nfcu
12/2018
$30000
bofa
8/2016
$30000
citi
3/2016
$21000
discover
5/2014
$20000
chase
10/2007
$8900
Message 44 of 66
iowe
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

Thank you for drawing that up! I really appreciate it! It makes the choice a lot easier when I can see that I stand to save half a grand in interest using the balance transfer. 
That gameplan is what I believe I can manage to stick with each month. I didn't factor in tax returns, bonuses, etc. but those get rolled into a snowball when they come as well. 









2024 Goal: To finally be debt free
Message 45 of 66
SlideOrInsert
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

@iowe:

this afternoon I got curious about the 6.99%/15mo/$0 offer... in calculating that, I have to call foul on myself for the previous calculations. I missed the last $409 payment in the formula, so the actual "total pmt" is 7675.


the 0% balance transfer including int+fees saves ~$90 vs. not doing it. I edited the post to reflect that.


so back to the 6.99% offer... this might actually be more friendly than the other offer:

 pmtbalanceutil %pmtbalanceutil % pmtbalanceutil %
 10.256898296.991330069vs.10.252019884
1-927603025-4001297767 -13271904479
2-927515421-4001265366 -13271787974
3-927427118-4001232764 -13271670570
4-927338114-4001199962 -13271552165
5-927248310-4001166860 -13271432660
6-92715777-4001133659 -13271312255
7-9276633-4001100257 -13271190750
8-66900-6581040954 -13271068145
9   -1327914247 -1327944639
10   -1327786841 -1327819934
11   -1327658734 -1327694229
12   -1327529927 -1327567524
13   -1327400321 -1327439618
14   -1327269914 -1327310713
15   -132713887 -132718068
16   -1327820 -13274952
17   -8300 -49900
           
 total pmttotal int total pmttotal inttotal total pmttotal intdiff
 -7158-260 -14157-857-1117 -21731-1533-416

 

saves ~$400. this case makes more sense to start with the larger payment towards nfcu due to the higher rate. disco requies something like 2% of balance as minimum payment, but I bumped it to 3% since some interest is accruing. at month 16/17 the rate increases back to 18.25%, but by that point the balance is low enough that the $ amount it negligible.

 

upgrade
9/2022
$30000
nfcu
8/2020
$20000
nfcu
12/2018
$30000
bofa
8/2016
$30000
citi
3/2016
$21000
discover
5/2014
$20000
chase
10/2007
$8900
Message 46 of 66
iowe
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

Again, thank you for doing my homework! You've been a tremendous help. I'll mull that over, but seeing that has me leaning toward the 6.99% deal now. 









2024 Goal: To finally be debt free
Message 47 of 66
iowe
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

My luck.. I took the 15 month 6.99% deal. Four days after my balance transfer was approved and posted, the interest rate on the new Discover balance transfer offers went down from 6.99% to 4.99% Lol   

Anyway, that's the way the rate falls sometimes I guess. Here is what  remains now that a large part of my NFCU balance has transferred over to Disco. 

 

$6797.98    NFCU cashrewards

$13295.24    Discover









2024 Goal: To finally be debt free
Message 48 of 66
SlideOrInsert
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

there is no fee for 4.99%? well there was no transfer fee for 6.99%. technically, you could balance transfer back to nfcu (at no fee) then back to discover again at 4.99% with no fee. might not be worth the hassle to save the $181 in cumulative interest.

nperapr %balancepmtcumipmt
156.9913295-928-628
154.9913295-916-447
   diff181


did you ask discover for a limit increase yet? also have you checked the apr for ncfu? when the thread started it was 10.25%, but now I see the newest rate from the website is 12.65%

 apr %limitbalancemin pmt
Penfed Personal Loan12.8--16750-673
Capital One QS22.9400000
Snyc Amazon Prime22600000
Pentagon FCU191000000
Discover6.991930013295-928
NFCU Cash Rewards10.25240006798-485
TOTAL 6330036843-2086

 

in any case, wait until the first week of 2023 to see if nfcu is going to offer any 0% or 1.99% offers this year. then we can get creative and see how much of your debt we can get 0% apr.

 

upgrade
9/2022
$30000
nfcu
8/2020
$20000
nfcu
12/2018
$30000
bofa
8/2016
$30000
citi
3/2016
$21000
discover
5/2014
$20000
chase
10/2007
$8900
Message 49 of 66
iowe
Regular Contributor

Re: financially wrecked - please advise my best moves

Discover gave me a cli of 4000.  I went from 19300 to 23300 limit. I have to give kudos to Discover. I've really enjoyed the relationship with them from the get go. I think when I got the card back in 2015 it only had an $800 limit. All of my experiences with Discover have been good ones. My only mild gripe would be the impossible-to-figure-out formula for consistent cli's. Seems to be no rhyme or reason to their cli approvals or amount of the approvals when approvals do come. I really like Discover though. 

nfcu current apr is 13.65% 









2024 Goal: To finally be debt free
Message 50 of 66
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