Paying down CC Debt

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Seems to me, as long as op will be debt free by Sept, how FICO score varies before September probably is not that important in the end.

Unless he wants to app before Sept I guess.

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The danger, though, lies in keeping the high balances on the other cards if he only pays one off a month, in addition to not really helping his payment history portion of his score. If for any reason the poop hits the fan, & his plan of paying one off a month derails, he will still have several cards with very high UTL ratios that could be closed or balance chased if times get rough & a payment is missed. It's the OP's choice in the end, but I personally think getting all accounts down is a safer strategy and has a better chance of keeping all his cards open. Just my 2 cents...

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Agreed.

[Anonymous]

What's your goal?  If you're like me, you don't like forking money over to banks for no reason.  I'd start with the highest interest rate balances first, and knock those out and then move down the ladder to the lowest.  Credit cards carry prohibitively high interest, so you're forking over a lot of money to these banks, knock them out asap.

[Anonymous]

I really appreciate all of the comments. Your post helped me decide on a similar plan of attack. I’m going to pay down everything 15% of the balance each.

AmEx 4000 600
Disney 4400 660
Discover 1900 285
Barclay 1800 270
Barclay 2400 360
Total monthly payments 2175

[HeavenOhio]

I like that idea. It's simple, it fits your budget, and all cards are going to be seeing significant payments.

[Anonymous]

A final tweak to help prevent balance chasing is to avoid paying only the bare minimun.  Paying only the MP is associated with risk, so pay $2 more (say) and that should prevent you being flagged for only making the MP.

[HeavenOhio]

@Anonymous, there was a thread about 10 days ago (in Credit Cards, I think) where the member reported an AMEX CLD after several months of paying "$10 to 20" over the minimum. I believe the initial limit was $3,800, He was reduced to just above his current balance, which was just over 2k. AMEX agreed to restore the limit when the member agreed to pay half his balance.

[HeavenOhio]

I found the thread:

AMEX CLD — update reinstated!