Snowball Negatively Affecting My Score?

[HeavenOhio]

Your 80% card (actually 87%) has a relatively low balance. It's also close to exceeding the 88.9% threshold that would max it and decrease your score.

Maybe you want to snowball that one now. After that, go back to snowballing lower balances.

[Anonymous]

Discover sent me a promo of 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for 14 months. Any balances I transfer by February won't have any fees but after that I believe it will be 3-5%. I'm thinking I transfer some of my 50-60% utilization that have large balances (4k, 2k, 1k) and pay off the 80% balance because it's only $900 and I can do that in 2 months. Then I can chip away at the Discover balance until it is in the 40% range and then continue my snowball payoff. What do you think?

[HeavenOhio]

You'd want to come up with the plan once you know your Discover card's limit. Definitely pay more than the minimum, though, as you want to show them that you intend to pay it off.

We don't know your APRs. You probably want to take those into consideration when you transfer balances. Then continue to snowball away.

[Anonymous]

Great idea.  Sounds like you are thinking carefully about what's best for you.  Good luck!

[Sandman771]

I would definitely close the Credit One cards as son as I got my UTI back under control so that it wouldn't take a hit. You have enough prime banks that you don't need them and their associated fees. JMO

Also I'm not a Cap one guru but if you could combine those two into one decent card with the combined limit?? I'm just a simple guy. I don't need 12 cards. I have one that I want to replace but I'm at least three if not six months from leaving the garden to app for it. Next one I want is the Hilton Amex and I have a ways to go for that one. But I stay there a lot so I see the benefits for sure. 

[Anonymous]

Totally agree, those cards served a purpose for getting me credit and they need to go asap. Like you said, once I lower my UTI I'll be cancelling them, I'll do the credit one's first and then end the cap one's once I get another card that has no foreign trans fees. I'm trying to raise my limits so I can minimize my cards. I'll keep the store cards for the discounts, but I want to keep them at $0.

[jamie123]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you! I'll sign up for the free trial, yes I am currently using Credit Karma.

Here my cards:

COMPANY | BALANCE | LIMIT

Amazon | $706 | $2,400 CALL FOR CLI

AEO | $0 | $1,800

Barclay Card | $4,433 | $8,700

BOA Card | $0 | $1,000

BR Card | $1,789 | $3,900

Capital One |  $317 | $1,500

Capital One Quick |  $0 | $750

Capital One GMC | $949 | $1,100

Credit One Visa | $0 | $850

Credit One Master | $0 | $800

Express | $0 | $500 CALL FOR CLI

HSN | $768 | $3,500

Loft | $546 | $1,210

Nordstrom | $1,140 | $2,000

Overstock | $555 $950

QVC Card | $1,321 | $3,600

VS | $0 | $970 CALL FOR CLI

Walmart | $0 | $1,500 CALL FOR CLI

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If you haven't called for a credit line increase for the cards that I marked above in the last 6 months, I might suggest that as a first step. You have a $0 balance on most of them except Amazon and Amazon can be generous. The cards that I marked usually won't do a HP to give you a CLI bump either. If they request an HP decline it and move onto the next card. There are two ways to reduce your UTI, pay your cards off or increase your credit lines. I suggest that you do both! You might get a pleasant surprise and end up with a good CLI or two. All they can say is no. It doesn't cost you anything except a short lived feeling of rejection and you can handle that! (We've all been there!)

[Anonymous]

This is great advice! Thank you.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I recently went over 30% cc utilization and have been trying to pay it down, I was at 45% but I used the snowball method to drop it to 40% but I'm not seeing my score go up. Before my debt increased I was at 706 TU/ 683 EQ, currently at 675 TU/ 667 EQ. Considering opening up a cc for balance transfer with 0% apr to help pay off the debt without interest but I'm worried I'll be denied because i'm under 700. Also wondering if another hard inquiry will drop my score. 

Some background:

Half my cards are at 0% utilization, one at 80% and a few in the 40-50%. Currently I am paying off the smaller ones and working my way to the higher one which is great for momentum, but is it hurting my score? My payment history is 100%, derogatory marks are 0, credit age 9 years, 38 open accounts, and 2 hard inquries (EQ has 5 but two are dropping off this month).

Thanks.

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The snowball method isn't hurting your score, but it's not geared towards short term score improvement, it's geared towards getting rid of your debt.

If you want to focus on improving your score, your best bet would be to get the 80% card, and any others at 50% or better down to 49%, then get them down to 29%, then knock them off one by one.

[Anonymous]

OP, I noticed back in your first post that you said you had 100% payment history, but later on stated that you were using CK.  CK stating that you have 100% payment history means that you've had no payment issues in the last 2 years, where FICO scoring considers at least the last 7 years.  I just want to make sure that you have absolutely no negative payment history items on your credit report at all and that you're not just going by the "100% payment history" graphic that the CK fluff software is showing you.