Maxed out cards

[Anonymous]

Hi!!

I was out on short term disability for a couple months and in that time relied on my cc's to live. I don't qualify for any consolidation loans ( according to pre screening on credit karma app) I'm sure it's because of my utilization I have no idea what to do.
I have never missed a payment on any of my cards and have always paid more than the minimum.
Now that I'm back at work, I make a decent amount to get the cards down to the point where maybe I can qualify for a loan. It's just so depressing that one illness caused me to get to this point.
I just joined NFCU and was going to try with them but am not familiar with their data points and am actually scared of the rejection.
I feel awful because I worked so hard to get my credit back on track. Two years ago I would have never qualified for cc's with 10,000 limits and here I sit with maxed out cards.
I'm open to any and all suggestions. I also worry that they see me as a risk and will close my accounts.
Capital one Savor 9,700/10,000
Capital one QS 7,600/8000
Citi 2000/2500
AMex Gold 4000
Local Credit union 2600/3000
Discover 6000/6500
Anyone familiar with these companies to give me insight on how to deal with them.
Thanks

[Remedios]

Well, all your cards are maxed out so balance shuffle between them is not happening. 

You could start throwing all the extra money on the ones with highest APR to save money while continuing to make minimum payments on others, or you could try snowball method, where you start with lowest balance, pay that off, go to the next one etc (while making minimum payments on others, of course)

It's really important you do not miss a payment because with missed payment and maxed out cards, AA is a real possibility. 

What are the APRs on your cards, minimum payments and how much money you have each month to dedicate to credit card payments? 

[Anonymous]

APR on CO cards : 19%
Discover:0% for 7 more mos. I recently opened this one and did a balance txfer
Citi: 18%
Credit union: 8%
My highest minimum payment is CO savor which is around 200.00. I have a extra 2500.00/ mo now that I'm back at work.
My plan was to pay 1000 per month on each of the QS and Savor until I can get these high interest ones to at least under 70% uti.

[Anonymous]

Sorry I have no advice to give you. Been in similar situations as you and I never could depend on a financial institution or lender to have faith in me. From what I read on here a lot of people have great success with NFCU. Maybe you can get a cloc from them and pay some things down? Their interest rate is nuts tho. I tried for their cloc when I signed up. They only gave me $500. I tried a cli when I had low uti and was denied. I tried with high uti and still denied. When I was in your situation I just had to grind it out on my own and didn't look for help from the banks. I definitely feel your pain.

[chiefone4u]

Grinding it out and paying down your debt is pretty much your only option once you're that close to maxed out.

If you're ok with possibly having accounts suspended or closed, Discover and American Express offer hardship terms that lower your interest rate and set a minimum payment you can afford.

I have heard Capital One offer's something too, but I don't know the details and the person who got an agreement with them was 120 days late reporting.

Sometimes if you are honest about your health and work situation your creditors will help you get back on your feet, but some will close your account without helping while others suspend new purchases while in a repayment plan.

As always YMMV. Best of luck.

[tacpoly]

If after 7 months your Discover card will charge you all the deferred interest, then make sure you get that paid off before that 0% offer expires. I suggest you divide the current balance by 6 (to be safe) or 7 and make the result your monthly payment (roughly $1000).

With the remaining $1500, make a little more than the minimum (this is advice I’ve seen given here) for the CU and Citibank cards and one of the Capital One cards. Throw what is left at the other Capital One card. Once that’s paid off, roll over that payment to the next card. It will take longer to see paid off cards this way but it will save you money. Once you clear that Discover card, you’ll knock off the other cc’s pretty quickly.

If you need the boost of seeing a $0 balance, then a little more than minimum for all cards (except the discover) and put the bulk of your money towards Citi.

I don’t quite understand the Amex Gold — is the $4000 a balance? Do you need to pay that off immediately?

It goes without saying that you should not be adding to the balance (i.e. not using cc) while you’re paying off the cards. And that you should economize as much as possible to pay as much as possible towards your debt.

Once you have a little breathing room, start working on your “rainy day fund”. I don’t know whether you depleted your savings or had none before your disability, but your experience should convince you of the importance of having enough savings to get you past life’s bumpy sections. At least 6 months of total living expenses saved is the guidance, but you may want to have 12 months. My suggestion is to continue to live frugally and put what you were paying towards cc debt into savings.

Good luck! Don’t stress, it looks like you can eliminate your debt in a little over a year if you’re disciplined.

P.s. I just noticed that you were on disability for a couple of months. Did you rack up around $30k in cc debt just during that time? If these were all from “normal living expenses” then you may want to evaluate your lifestyle and see where you can be a bit leaner going forward.

[SlideOrInsert]

the good news is that 2500/mo is a healthy amount to clean this up.

if you want to pay each balance down in an equal time period (when the unknown apr kicks in it will change the numbers):

	bal	apr	min ~2%	pmt 12	pmt 14	cumipmt 14
Capital one Savor	9700	19	194	−894	−778	−1191
Capital one QS	7600	19	152	−700	−610	−933
Discover	6000		120	−500	−429
Amex Gold	4000		80	−333	−286
Local Credit union	2600	8	52	−226	−195	−132
Citi	2000	18	40	−183	−159	−232
TOTAL	31900			−2837	−2456	−2488

if you want to consider some avalanche hybrid where you pay off Amex/Disco first:

mo	pmt	bal	pmt	bal	pmt	bal	pmt	bal	pmt	bal	pmt	bal
		4000		6000		9700		7600		2000		2600
1	−1942	2058	−120	5880	−194	9660	−152	7568	−40	1990	−52	2565
2	−1942	116	−120	5760	−194	9619	−152	7536	−40	1980	−52	2530
3	−116	0	−120	5640	−194	9577	−152	7503	−40	1970	−52	2495
4			−2062	3578	−194	9534	−152	7470	−40	1959	−52	2460
5			−2062	1516	−194	9491	−152	7437	−40	1948	−52	2424
6			−1516	0	−740	8902	−152	7402	−40	1938	−52	2389
7					−2256	6787	−152	7368	−40	1927	−52	2352
8					−2256	4638	−152	7332	−40	1916	−52	2316
9					−2256	2456	−152	7296	−40	1904	−52	2280
10					−2256	238	−152	7260	−40	1893	−52	2243
11					−242	0	−2166	5209	−40	1881	−52	2206
12							−2408	2883	−40	1870	−52	2168
13							−2408	521	−40	1858	−52	2131
14							−529	0	−1885	0	−86	2059
15											−2073	0
cumipmt
-3347	0		0		−1276		−1431		−405		−235

* numbers are rough due to rounding

[601flyguy]

Did you see if you have a amex loan offer?

[CreditInspired]

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@tacpoly wrote:
If after 7 months your Discover card will charge you all the deferred interest, then make sure you get that paid off before that 0% offer expires. I suggest you divide the current balance by 6 (to be safe) or 7 and make the result your monthly payment (roughly $1000).

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Knock-on-wood Discover’s interest is not deferred. The outstanding balance is what the new APR will be calculated on.