High Utilization_How to Pay Cards

[Yawo64 12]

Hello,

 

I have 5 cards now, with the following limits, most of which are about 90% maxed (mainly from post-mortgage shopping, moving, home repairs, kids going to college, etc), hence a very high utilization across the board:

                Discover: $5000 Limit

• Chase Amazon Visa:  $2500
• BestBuy Citi Mastercard:  $2000
• DCU Visa:  $3000
• BarclayCard:  $1000
• about 4 other store cards (Macy''s, Khols, JCPenny, Lowe and HomeDepot) with limits raning between $300 and $100

I have no lates (within the past 3 years), and waiting for some old charge-offs to drop off later this year and next. Thankfully, I have a part-time job now, so it is helping meet my expenses without resorting to the credit cards.

I have $5000 from my tax return to distribute on these cards.  I intend to put $3k on the Discover, and $500 each across all the 4 other cards (Amazon, BB, DCU and Barclays).

Is this a reasonable way  to pay out the cards?  I want to gradually reduce my utilization and increase my socres, and would appreciate inputs into a strategy that helps achieve this.

 

Thanks

[shellieh98 1,505]

All the amounts added together = 100% of what you owe.  So take each card and assign a % to them.  example 500.00 owed on 1 card, 250 owed on 1 care, and 250 owed on another card.  Card 1 would have 50% of the debt, cards 2 and 3 would be 25% each.

I am assuming they all have about the same interest rate. If not, you may want to pay more on the card with the highest interest rate.

Now take the total amount of the money you have to go toward your debts.  Pay the same percentage of what you  have to each of the percentages of what you owe.  In the above example, say I only had 500.00 to pay those.  I would pay card 1 250.00, and cards 2 and 3 125.00 each. 

[Yawo64 12]

Hello Folks,

Thanks very much for your encouraging. I went ahead and paid the following 6 cards with the $5K refund: Barclays, Cap1A, Cap1B, AmazonChase, WellsFargo & Khols.  Now, I will remove these cards from my wallet and place them in a safe-celebratory box.

My next strategy would be to focus on the BestBuy and DCU cards. 

I did check the Discover card and yes, as you rightly guessed, no BT offers.  

cheers,  Yawo64