new to forum, need help

One idea might be to focus on your highest interest rate first.

Pay minimins on the others, but on the card with the highest interest rate, put some extra money.

Then once the highest one is paid off, use the same approach on the next highest ... without charging the highest interest rate card back up.

I think others here can give better advice, maybe explain this concept better, or give you links to help with debt management.


good luck to you.

peace,
delilah

 

Also, as you pay down the higher interest debts, look at your account balances as a % of the credit limit. Trying to shave down any accounts with excessively high %'s (>50 or so) can increase your score quickly (if excessive or new negatives aren't holding it down) and open up the possibilities for lower interest rate accounts or interest rate reductions on your existing accounts.

HTH
Good Luck !

 

One idea might be to focus on your highest interest rate first.
delilah
===============
Other ways
1*Always pay the original Min. on each card
2*Always pay the original Min. on each card plus the current finance charges.
3*Pay the largest payment on the card with the lowest balance and the min. pmt. on the other cards. when this account is paid off add what you were paying on it to the min. of the card with the next lower balance follow this system till you're down to the last card. At this time you will be applying all the money you had been paying to just one final card which cuts the balance down fast on it.



THE END ** *** ** LB 59

 

Don't worry about what the balance is. Delilah has the right idea. Put all of the information in a spreadsheet--card name, balance, interest rate, and minimum payment.

Sort by interest rate. Pay minimum payments on everything EXCEPT the highest rate. On the highest rate, pay as much as you can. For example, pay the minimum plus $500 (or whatever you can afford to pay). The more you can pay, the faster you pay your debts off.

When the highest interest is paid off, add what you've been paying on it (the minimum plus your extra) to the next highest. For example, the minimum on the first card was $100, you were paying an extra $500 (for a total of $600). Now add the $600 to the minimum on the next card, so if the minimum was $50 on the second highest card, you're now paying $650. Keep this up, and you'll pay more on each successive card, therefore paying it off faster.

I redid the spreadsheet every month. If interest rates change, you may change who gets the extra. By always paying on the highest interest rate, you'll pay everything off faster.

As you pay off a card, you only use it for what you can pay off each month, like your gas.

If you get BT offers, only transfer to a card that doesn't have a balance, and then don't charge anything on it until the BT is paid. Of course, it's going to be far down your list, so just stick the card in the sock drawer and forget you have it.

 

I'll stand by my suggestion that you DO look at individual balances to a certain extent.

It's not ONLY average % utilization (UT) that affects score, but also any particularly high % UT on a single account. Therefore, if you also give any particularly high % UT account some priority to get it below 35-50%, you have the POTENTIAL of a higher score and therefore a better chance of lowering overall finance charges that occur while you continue with your payoff plan.

Here's an EXTREME example to illustrate my point more clearly:

Acct 1: Bal=$2,000, APR = 21%, C.L. = $5,000, %UT = 40
Acct 2: Bal=$500, APR = 15%, C.L. = $600, %UT = 83

OVERALL %UT = 44.6

What I would consider is paying down Acct. 2 to around 40-45 %UT to see if I had an improvement in score (by shaving down the 83%UT) that might give me a shot at lowering Acct 1's APR to 15-18% or who knows what in addition to the APR on Acct 2 !

In this example you are leveraging your score up to increase the probability of lowering APR more quickly than simply paying on the higher APR balance will do.

I hope that's clear. If not, or you don't agree, no sweat, it's just a "tweak" anyways. Hell, maybe the configuration of your accounts doesn't even present that opportunity. BUT, I think it would be silly not to at least CONSIDER it.

In any event, I think whatever helps you develop the right discipline to complete your paydown plan in consistent fashion is more important than optimizing the finance charges by whatever anybody's "magic formula" is.