What to pay down for best boost in score?

[team_audi]

Here is what my situation looks like. I have a 641 EQ and 658 TU and ??? EX

I have these cards

Juniper-          2900/3000

Hooters-         1950/2000

Wamu-           1450/1500

Household-      850/900

Capitold One-   490/500

Car Care One-  380/500

Target-             450/500

First Premier-   459/550

Best Buy-         260/300

Credit One-       390/400

This is my current revolving debt. I do have a BK from 05 and a Satisfied Judgment from 02. I have student loans, 2 car loans one is 20k the other is 16k, and a personal loan for 10k. I am at a overall 91% debt ratio vs limits. Perfect credit since BK.

I have $3000 to work with, what should I pay off to get the best boost in score? I was going to pay off some to 0 balance, but i heard its better to have some balance for payment wise? Should I pay some to 50% will that make a diff? or pay some down to 9%?

Any advice would be helpful

Matt

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, in a perfect world, you'll have all but one or two reporting $0 and the other(s) reporting 9% or less, but you'll have to work up to that by stages.

I suppose for scoring, you might reduce one of the big cards to 49% and pay off the small ones, but the problem is that with every single card maxed out, you're in real danger of having every single one of them closed on you. You might need to think about triaging this, looking at which cards you most want to hang on to. Pay them to under 50% first, and if you have anything else left over, apply it to one of the small cards. Even then, you might see the creditors you're trying to keep start to "chase the balance" by dropping your CL every time you pay to a figure just a bit above whatever your new balance is.

[team_audi]

I was thinking of paying down all the little ones first, honestly I hardly use any of the cards.

The two cards that I am thinkiing about paying off and closing are the premier and credit one because of the monthly fee and annual fee involved.

Would closing hurt my score tho? I have only had credit one for 1 month, and premier for 2 years.

I was reading somewhere its better to have 9% on any given card and not $0 because it sees no payment history then?

I could pay all small ones to 50% or 9% and the rest to pay down the big cards?

Or I could pay off as many of the small ones and work on the big ones after?

[SCF]

As long as you have a balance report on one card, FICO sees that as recent usage and you'll be fine.  FICO also wants to see balances on less than half of your accounts.

I think that since you have cards with fees involved, you should think about paying down these accounts in the way that saves you the most money overall (which will also improve your score, but perhaps not as quickly as a score-focused approach).  I would start with any cards that have annual or monthly fees, pay them off and then close them down.  Since most of your cards are near maxed, you shouldn't see a big drop in scores from the loss of CL in the short-term, and in the long-term you'll get those points back.  Once you've polished off your fee cards, start with the one that has the highest APR and go from there.

[marty56]

In addition to what others have said, I would pay down your oldest and or best card first because of CLDs and chasing the balance.  Protect your credit assets.