Loading…
24
Pro tip: I paid one card down to $0 every month instead of splitting extra cash across four cards
I had four cards sitting around $600 to $900 each and I was throwing $50 extra at whichever one felt urgent that week. After about 8 months of that I looked at my statements and none of the balances had really moved, because the interest on all four was eating the extra money before it could do anything. In March I switched to putting every spare dollar on the smallest card, a $640 balance at 26% APR, and just paid the minimums on the other three. That one card hit zero in 11 weeks, and then I took the $180 a month I had been sending it and rolled it onto the next one. The weird part is my credit score went up 40 points by June even though my total debt was barely different at first. Something about one card at zero percent use instead of four cards at 40% use makes the math work in your favor. Has anyone else found that knocking out one balance at a time actually moved their score faster than spreading payments around?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
charles6401mo ago
How did you figure out which card to attack first? I feel you on the four cards at 40% use thing, that part never gets talked about enough. I did the same song and dance for way too long, paying a little here and a little there, and it felt like running in place. Once I stacked everything on one card and got it gone, the rest got easier because I actually had momentum and fewer bills to track. Your score bump makes sense too, since the cards you leave open at zero still count as credit you are not using.
9