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Credit Card Advice

December 4th, 2006 at 04:50 am

Hello All

Here is the dilemma I have – hope someone can help.

Credit Card 1 – American Express Blue
Total Credit Line $17,000.00
APR 8.990%
Debt to Credit Ratio 11.93%

Credit Card 2 – Mastercard
Total Credit Line $25,000.00
APR 10.990% first $12,000 - 3.990% remainder
Debt to Credit Ratio 60.60%

Above is what I approximately owe – I have $5,000 in savings I would not like to use (saving it in case of an emergency) – I can pay this debt off in the next 2 years.

I would like to know from the experts – should I open a 0% APR credit card – I have offers for this rate for 2 years. My FICO score ranges from 736, 753, 764.

Is this a good idea or not recommended – my Debt to Credit Ratio will decrease but how badly will it effect my credit. These are the only 2 credit cards I have.

Thanks in advance !!!



Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Credit Card Advice”

  1. yummy64 Says:
    December 4th, 2006 at 05:21 am 1165209691
    1165209691

    Personally, I'd open a 0 APR account, and close the higher of the two credit cards. I didn't do the math to see which is the account with the higher effective interest rate.

    If I were you'd I'd focus on putting every cent (other than an emergency fund) into getting rid of the credit card balances (I'd focus on the higher interest one first and just the minimum on the other one). I did that with my credit cards and then with my car loan til I got rid of all the balances I was carrying. Wasn't always easy but was very worth it

    I don't worship at the "altar of the credit score". I know.. makes me weird!

  2. boomeyers Says:
    December 4th, 2006 at 05:33 am 1165210388
    1165210388

    Yes, I would definately get the new card. I just did this myself. It will not hurt your credit score. They will probably only approve you for a fraction of what you ask for. If you ask for 17,000, they will only approve you for about 5,000, so it is frustrating, but it least it is a little that you are only paying 0% on. Then after a couple of months, call them and tell them you want 12,000 to pay off am ex and they should go ahead and lend you the rest. This is how they did it for me. Then I hammered the higher percent card. Once you get rid of that one, you can look around for another 0% card to jump to. Good luck!

  3. Ima saver Says:
    December 4th, 2006 at 04:36 pm 1165250191
    1165250191

    I would do it too!

  4. crazyliblady Says:
    December 9th, 2006 at 04:19 pm 1165681150
    1165681150

    Hi, Codeweb. If I were you, I would cease putting anything into savings for a time. You have a nice little cushion you can use for an emergency. Figure out how much you can afford to put on this debt. I would list the debts, interest rates, due dates, and current balance in some kind of computer spreadsheet or maybe a notebook. I personally would start with the smallest debt first and pay more than the minimum payment and pay the minimum payment on the other one until you get the first one paid off. Then, snowball the amount you were paying on the first card into the second one. By starting with the smallest one, you can see some results very quickly. There are different philosophies on this, like paying on the one with the greatest interest rate first. You may need to do some reallocation of funds in your budget or cut some corners to accomplish this.

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