ukikkgr

Thank you.... this is a sound strategy and achievable in my opinion. My goal is to have all this clobbered by mid 2015. My scores hang steady in the high 600's to low 700's and credit ute is the culprit. Getting the loan in my mind will give me one balance to attack affordable and will bring my credit ute down immediately. I have no interest in opening another revolving trade line unless it can help me attack this debt. Snowballing has not worked. I'm still managing 7 separate min payments and I'm not gaining much ground. At that rate I'll be out of the hole by 2018-2020. Getting the loan makes more sense to me.

I don't think you will be able to obtain a CL high enough at approval to do a BT. Hence my opinion that you should take out a loan given the rate is lower than your cards, and keep your current cards open. My average APR on all cards is 16.84% I'm certain I can get a loan cheaper than that.

My problem is when I apply for ANY 0% BT card I am stuck with a low CL. I applied for a I've been approved for a Citi Simplicity with $1000 CL, A CitiBank Diamond Preferred mastercard witrh $3500 CL and a Cap One Prestige with $500. None are close to the $12,000 I am looking for to move at least 3 of the largest balances over. Any advice or strategy in gaining a higher CL?

This was GREAT ADVICE. Thank you Bob. I registered on Credit Karma and the ease of use plus info and score is a terrific service! What does Credit Sesame offer? I've been spending $200 a year checking scores!

Well... can someone recommend a good BT card and program. I do have an open Citi Simplicity card with a $0 balance that is 3% BT fee and 18 month at 0%. But they only gave me a $1000 limit. Remember the lender is going to have to extend me $12,000 ceiling. My scores are good but ute is still over 35%. I've never been the type to apply for a $25,000 Platimum card and get it.

43%. Ute. I prefer not to go down the 0% balance road. For one, I'm not certain if I can pay this debt off entirely in 12-18 months... and frankly I don't want to experiment. Adding another revolving CL is not that attractive to me and frankly that is more of a way to get into trouble than just keeping the remaining lines of credit clean. I'd much prefer to take out a 60 month loan and attack it with vigor. I've paid off two cars in under 5 years and both had 60 month loans.

We have $23K in liquid savings. I just prefer not to touch that. We live in NY. I pay more in property tax annually than what I owe in this credit card debt. I do agree to close a few lines though. I don't need them all.

Well the repairs are done. It was our first five years in an older house. I needed a new furnace and the driveway repaved and some other stuff. My wife and I still contribute to savings just in some of these cases we wound up putting it toward some debt. Keep in mind again that my total debt is 12% of my gross income and only 6% of our combined annual income. We both have good jobs and if we were so committed toward retirement and other savings I'd have this knocked off in a year. I just don't want to dally around with it... and honestly snowballing ain't making a dent. Neither is paying a little more than each minimum.

They vary from 11-19% I've just pulled my FICO scores on all three and they are fair 712-EX 698-TU 702- EQ

I can more than trust myself.... most of this accumulated over 6 years after buying my house which resulted in required maintenance and or repairs. They weren't spent on vacations or new clothes and such. I've had this debt down as low as $4800 but recently had some heating work done. I'm also expecting a fairly large bonus from my company year end which should be able to knock this debt down my a third or even half. I'd much rather make a big chunk payment to a loan rather than distrbuting it over several balances. My debt is about 12% of my gross income. It doesn't include mortgage and auto of course but it has been manageable. I just want to pay this off quickly and applying $150 to single line of credit only to see the CC load $50 worth of interest the following month is like trying to throw a pebble against the sea. To apply $450 a month to a low interest loan seem more practical sense. I want this paid completely down in 24 months.

I have about $12,000 in credit card debt racked up 7 lines over 5 years and while I've tried battling this debt via snowball method and just making payments I find that I am not making terrific progress at it chipping away this way. My average pay and monthly is investment is about $450-500 of which 6 cards are getting $50 toward their minimum balance leaving only $150 left to tackle the largest dept ($5700 Cap One). Wouldn't it be so much easier to get a 60 month signature loan for $12K at 7% interest and throw $500 per month over 2-3 years? I've asked this question a few times and I've been discouraged by debt 'experts' who state that If I stick to the snowball method I'll have more success. By my calculation it could take years to tackle that. By my calculation...getting a cash loan to pay off all of my revolving debt would not only raise my score by eliminating my average debt ute ratio but it will give me an organized source to attack this debt monthly in large chunks. Plus I'll get points for paying the loan off early. True?

I guess my concern is I could make a dent in a $8K balance over a year, but I certainly won't clear it completely. My budget is $400-500 per month. I'd be looking at $9K in balances. In total I'd probably have $2-3K left on the card after the interest swings back to 12-14%.

Not sure if I qualify for Navy Federal. My sister is in a local CU that's offering an 7.99% (APR) consolidation loan by 3/31/13. Family members are welcome to apply. In that time I can more than pay off the smaller balances and bring them to $0. Then I will just have to deal with the $8.5K that is left. 7,99% is better than the 14.99% on the card. I'd rather get an installment rather than another revolving debt account. My only installments are my mortgage and car. I also have a $1000 CitiForward card with 0% transfers for 18 months. Of course I haven't used it b/c at $1000 it wouldn't put a dent in my pile and I obviously don't want to spread my debt unnecessarily to other trade lines.

Things got a little out of hand last year. Instead of paying off some scheduled debt I rang some up new debt while adding some new credit. I'm committed to paying this off in the next 24 months with a budget of $500 per month. The question is... is it better to consolidate these or pay them off by snowballing one by one? My current Exp Score is 668. I have $11,500 in revolving debt at 37% ute. About 11 tradelines out of 21 reported have some balance. After just paying off some nominal balances my plan of attack would be as follows If I were to snowball it would go in this order.... Barclay- $280 ($1000 CL) at 23.9% Mobil-$310 (400 CL) at 19.9 Orchard- $550 ($1350 CL) at 19.9% Best Buy-$600 ($1800) at 19.9% Capital One-$5900 ($8K CL) at 14.4% Credit Union LOC-$2700 (closed) at 7.5% Would it make more sense to take out a personal loan for 24 months for $12K and pay off all of the balances at once? I'm sure I could get one under 10% these days?

Actually my wife and I's net monthly income is 37%. We make $7200 per month combined and that is just salary. I also make bonuses, although in this economy they have been more infrequent. $1-3K pre quarter pre-tax (they are taked usually at 44% so the gov't takes close to one half). My wife and I actually gross about $130-140K per year, but here are the realities.... We live in NY. The cost of living here is about 50% more than Topeka Kansas. Heating oil, gas, groceries, all come with an inflated price. My mortgage is only $1722 a month. My property taxes are $11K per year. This debt was gradual. Some left over from our wedding in 2007. Some left over after our closing in 2008. I wouldn't say $11K spread over 5-6 years is skyrocketing debt by any means. Some big chunks came from some major house repairs (we had a furnace replacement 2 years ago that cost $5K and storm damage from Hurricane Irene that insurance didn't cover-tree removal etc). So it's not been due to vacations or extravagent spending. In the same time we put on the debt we also managed to save $20K and still contribute to 401K. I'd just like to consolidate this and knock it down quickly without depleting my savings. Again, I live in NY... no 'job' is a small job or cheap. My driveway needs to be resurfaced before the winter and there is $1500 right there. Where do you live? How far does your dollar go?