Is it better to payoff..........

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have an installment loan with a balance of $4330 and I have several credit cards that are 70 to 80 Ulitized.  Unfortunately, the interest rate is about the same for all the cards.  I'm going to have some extra money, so I'm wondering is it better to A.) pay off one large balance, say the installment loan or B.) get the majority of my cards down to about 35-40 % Utilization.  I am trying to see which way would help my fico score the best.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

For scoring, it's better to reduce the CC.  If you paid off the installment loan, you would lose that mix in your credit profile - if you couldn't pay it all the way down and only paid part, again it wouldn't really help since the scoring algorithm doesn't recognize the reduction in loans as much as in CC.  You might also want to consider if you can pay off at least half your cards totally or even one card totally.  Either way though, get your cards below 50% util for a better score.

For more advice, post your cards, rates, balances and CL...

Finally, if you don't absolutely need the best score, consider paying best for your budget instead (ie what would make the most sense to YOU).

good luck