Hello everyone!
I would like to apply for a mortgage sometime this year, and I would like to improve my credit. I am hoping that you guys can offer some advice on my current situation. 
I currently have about $3000.00 in the bank that I would like to put towards paying down some debt. Here are my balances:
Citibank Diamond Preferred - $3000 CL, $2920.00 balance
Gap - $1700 CL, $1446.50 balance
Walmart - $800 CL, $489.22 balance
Chevron - $800 CL, $487.60 balance
Paypal - $700 CL, $688.30 balance
AMEX Zync – PIF every month
I also have the following 5 cards that I recently PIF:
First Premier Bank - $250 CL, $7 balance
Capital One - $500 CL, $0 balance
Capital One - $500 CL, $0 balance
HSBC Discover - $300 CL, $0 balance
HSBC Discover - $300 CL, $0 balance
I also have two auto loans:
Santander Bank - $9900.00
Space Coast Credit Union - $15,191.96
Like I mentioned before, I have about $3000.00 that I would like to put towards paying down these accounts. I also have an offer from the credit union to refinance my Hyundai, which is currently with Santander. The Santander loan is at a 12% interest rate, and the CU is offering me 4%. The CU can only loan me $8500 for the refinance.
My first question is: how do I allocate my money? Should I pay down only my credit card balances? Or should I pay down my Santander loan, refinance and then use the leftover to pay some cards? If so, which CCs should I pay first?
My second question is: the First Premier, Capital One and HSBC cards all charge me an annual fee. These are all at a $0 balance(except for First Premier, which I am paying today). Should I close these accounts? I know that by doing that, my utilization will go down. The First Premier account gets charged $7 a month, while the others are charged once a year. I think one of the Cap One cards will be charged in March.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
If it were me - I'd pay off all cards except Citibank - those come to just a little over $3k. Just make sure you do not start charging them back up - I've done this, and am kicking myself! Take those payments that are no long making and throw as much as you can to the Citi Card.
I feel your pain with Santander, I was once with them at 20%, got a different car thru Wells Fargo at 10% and hoping to refinance very soon.
Other scenrio - Do the refi - take $1400 of the 3K to make up the difference - use the remainder to pay off Walmart, Chevron, Paypal - then pay down the remainders with the savings from the refi + and the payments you were making on the cards you paid off.
And I would not close any of the cards, unless you feel that you will go on a shopping spree - like I did -kicking myself.
Hi Rain77!
Oh yeah, I am guilty of that too - paying everything off and then charging again. I feel your pain!! But I think I have learned my lesson and will most probably not do that again. 
I also try to keep the paid off cards at home in a drawer!
Santander is alright I guess.... They offered me the 12% while I had the original car loan with Capital One at like a 19% or 20%, so I refinanced. But I feel like they have done their duty and now that I have better scores it's time to move on. I'm kind of leaning towards doing the refi and then using the leftovers and applying that towards the CCs.
Ugh, still on the fence about closing any of my cards tho..... It bothers me to pay the AF!
How many have an annual fee? How old are the accounts? Sometimes when you threaten to close they waive the fee, sometimes, for the year. Worked once for me with Cap 1. You can try that. That gives you time to pay down the Citi card. Once utiliztion is optimal, you can decide whether or not to close. Or may be close 2 or 3 now, if you feel it won't will hurt your score based on uti and AAoA. You can always calculate to get an idea.