- Jun 24, 2001
- 24,195
- 856
- 126
Long story short:
Your suggestions really saved my credit. Now I need to know which cards to cancel to improve my already improving credit score. All my previous balances are now part of a loan and two new credit cards with 0% promo APRs for the next year+. All the old credit lines remain open at ridiculous interest rates (not worth using). Some have higher credit limits and I fear that canceling them will affect the amount future creditors are willing to lend ("Everyone else is only risking $1,500 to $3,000 so we aren't going to step out and offer $8,000!").
Long story:
Back in July, Prosper.com told me that my credit score was too low to get a loan but someone here on ATOT suggested LendingClub.com and everything has changed (THANKS!). I thought it was abysmal due to being near the maximum limits on all my cards, but they said I had a 710 score through Transunion and the LendingClub community loaned me $4,800 at 12% (36 months) as a credit consolidation load to pay down a lot of the balances on my other cards. I had a lot more than that on my other cards but 12% was MUCH better than what I was paying and it freed up about $150 a month that would have just gone to paying interest on some ridiculously high APRs.
So, I was near the maximum on all my cards and most of my payments every month were being wasted on interest. I had a $3,000 credit line on my Bank of America Gold card, which was at a RIDICULOUS interest fate of over 25%. I had $5,500 and $1,500 credit lines on my two Chase Rewards cards, which were 18.99 and 23.99% respectively. I also had about $100 0% balance on a $300 Best Buy credit card. I paid off and canceled a Fry's Electronics card around the same time.
So, even though it wasn't enough to pay off all of those lines of credit, I knew that it was bad to be near the maximum on any card so I didn't just put $3,000 on BofA and the remainder on the $5.5K Chase card. Instead, I made a weighted distribution with most of it going on the highest APR card. This left about $800 each on the higher APR Chase and BofA cards and I resolved to pay them down an extra $100 over the minimum each month with all the money I was saving in interest. I still had about $3,400 on the other Chase card and paid off the Best Buy balance while it was still promotional.
There was obviously a HUGE spike in my credit score because I started getting pre-approved 0% balance transfer offers only a month and a half later. I transferred all my balances to a new $4,500 Chase Slate (about $4,000 on it) and $5,000 Discover CashBack Bonus (about 2,500 on it). At the time of approval, Discover reported a FICO 738 from Equifax. That's a nice bump since July. Anyway, I needed a car because it's winter and I moved back to GA where my motorcycle can't be my only transportation, so I'm financed on a cheap new Toyota Corolla where they let me take an less-common 7-year term because my score was "so good" (finance manager's words), so I think it may have gone up since then.
I called BofA and told them to lower the rate or else I was canceling. They said they could only enable a year of 1.9% APR promo, which I accepted because I'm keeping it open for overdraft protection (linked to checking account). I don't know if I should have them lower the balance or not because I don't want to close the only two cards I have with higher balances in case it looks like I can't handle a larger amount.
So, after all that, my concern is that if I just close my $5,500 Chase and reduce my $3,000 BofA lines of credit (~$500), I'll be less likely to get approved for larger lines of credit when I need it in the future, such as transferring to a new promotional 0% offer once the promo runs out on my current balances. I obviously can't keep everything open because too much available credit looks bad. I'd like to know if this is a solid plan:
$300 Best Buy - Close
$1,500 Chase Rewards - Close
$5,500 Chase Rewards - Leave open with no balance - Negotiate better rate
$3,000 Bank of America - Renegotiated - Leave open with no balance for overdraft protection - Lower limit to $1,000
$4,500 Chase Slate - Leave open and pay down over 1.25 year 0% promotional period
$5,000 Discover Bonus - Leave open and pay down over 1.25 year 0% promo period
Remember, all of those are paid off except the last two and I can probably count on getting more promotional offers by that time, especially because they will be much lower balances by that time. Heck, I'm *STILL* getting the offers even with all my credit at 0%! The problem is that it only lowers my total available credit by $3,000. I don't think it's a good idea to get rid of the $5.5K Chase because none of the others have offered me that much and it raises the average available from each creditor, which I assume makes me appear less risky to loan higher amounts to. I'd rather have one good $8-10K offer than all this and I'd like to work toward that. With LendingClub and my car loan building up my non-credit card credit history, I'd like to do what I can here to raise my credit score so that I can get a good mortgage in a few years. If possible, I'm aiming for 800+ FICO Experian in the next year and hopefully even higher beyond. I really make very little as a security guard so I may take a second full-time job to do it. Assuming I ever get that far, I'd be getting the house with at least two others on the mortgage, so don't knock me and my $10hr security guard job just because I'm now thinking about a house!
Your suggestions really saved my credit. Now I need to know which cards to cancel to improve my already improving credit score. All my previous balances are now part of a loan and two new credit cards with 0% promo APRs for the next year+. All the old credit lines remain open at ridiculous interest rates (not worth using). Some have higher credit limits and I fear that canceling them will affect the amount future creditors are willing to lend ("Everyone else is only risking $1,500 to $3,000 so we aren't going to step out and offer $8,000!").
Long story:
Back in July, Prosper.com told me that my credit score was too low to get a loan but someone here on ATOT suggested LendingClub.com and everything has changed (THANKS!). I thought it was abysmal due to being near the maximum limits on all my cards, but they said I had a 710 score through Transunion and the LendingClub community loaned me $4,800 at 12% (36 months) as a credit consolidation load to pay down a lot of the balances on my other cards. I had a lot more than that on my other cards but 12% was MUCH better than what I was paying and it freed up about $150 a month that would have just gone to paying interest on some ridiculously high APRs.
So, I was near the maximum on all my cards and most of my payments every month were being wasted on interest. I had a $3,000 credit line on my Bank of America Gold card, which was at a RIDICULOUS interest fate of over 25%. I had $5,500 and $1,500 credit lines on my two Chase Rewards cards, which were 18.99 and 23.99% respectively. I also had about $100 0% balance on a $300 Best Buy credit card. I paid off and canceled a Fry's Electronics card around the same time.
So, even though it wasn't enough to pay off all of those lines of credit, I knew that it was bad to be near the maximum on any card so I didn't just put $3,000 on BofA and the remainder on the $5.5K Chase card. Instead, I made a weighted distribution with most of it going on the highest APR card. This left about $800 each on the higher APR Chase and BofA cards and I resolved to pay them down an extra $100 over the minimum each month with all the money I was saving in interest. I still had about $3,400 on the other Chase card and paid off the Best Buy balance while it was still promotional.
There was obviously a HUGE spike in my credit score because I started getting pre-approved 0% balance transfer offers only a month and a half later. I transferred all my balances to a new $4,500 Chase Slate (about $4,000 on it) and $5,000 Discover CashBack Bonus (about 2,500 on it). At the time of approval, Discover reported a FICO 738 from Equifax. That's a nice bump since July. Anyway, I needed a car because it's winter and I moved back to GA where my motorcycle can't be my only transportation, so I'm financed on a cheap new Toyota Corolla where they let me take an less-common 7-year term because my score was "so good" (finance manager's words), so I think it may have gone up since then.
I called BofA and told them to lower the rate or else I was canceling. They said they could only enable a year of 1.9% APR promo, which I accepted because I'm keeping it open for overdraft protection (linked to checking account). I don't know if I should have them lower the balance or not because I don't want to close the only two cards I have with higher balances in case it looks like I can't handle a larger amount.
So, after all that, my concern is that if I just close my $5,500 Chase and reduce my $3,000 BofA lines of credit (~$500), I'll be less likely to get approved for larger lines of credit when I need it in the future, such as transferring to a new promotional 0% offer once the promo runs out on my current balances. I obviously can't keep everything open because too much available credit looks bad. I'd like to know if this is a solid plan:
$300 Best Buy - Close
$1,500 Chase Rewards - Close
$5,500 Chase Rewards - Leave open with no balance - Negotiate better rate
$3,000 Bank of America - Renegotiated - Leave open with no balance for overdraft protection - Lower limit to $1,000
$4,500 Chase Slate - Leave open and pay down over 1.25 year 0% promotional period
$5,000 Discover Bonus - Leave open and pay down over 1.25 year 0% promo period
Remember, all of those are paid off except the last two and I can probably count on getting more promotional offers by that time, especially because they will be much lower balances by that time. Heck, I'm *STILL* getting the offers even with all my credit at 0%! The problem is that it only lowers my total available credit by $3,000. I don't think it's a good idea to get rid of the $5.5K Chase because none of the others have offered me that much and it raises the average available from each creditor, which I assume makes me appear less risky to loan higher amounts to. I'd rather have one good $8-10K offer than all this and I'd like to work toward that. With LendingClub and my car loan building up my non-credit card credit history, I'd like to do what I can here to raise my credit score so that I can get a good mortgage in a few years. If possible, I'm aiming for 800+ FICO Experian in the next year and hopefully even higher beyond. I really make very little as a security guard so I may take a second full-time job to do it. Assuming I ever get that far, I'd be getting the house with at least two others on the mortgage, so don't knock me and my $10hr security guard job just because I'm now thinking about a house!
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram