I’m looking to get rid of a couple credit cards in the coming weeks, and want to know what the best way to go about canceling them would be so it kind of benefits me.
Pay it all off and cancel immediately, Pay it off but keep a 0$ (or even a few $$) balance and cancel it in the future, or pay like half this month and half next month.
Now, the reason i ask is i know (from what else i’ve read) that keeping a high balance on the card can have negative effects on your credit, and this card is at about 95%. So i wasnt sure if just paying it off and canceling it would be the best thing or getting it down to a reasonable balance and then canceling.
Appreciate the help.
edit: lol, i need to learn to type, i meant experts.
Defaintely pay off the balance. Have a high utilization absolutely hurts your scores.
90% of the time you will want to keep the cards open. This accomplishes a few things: keeps your average age of account up; also keeps your overall utilization down if you were to take out new cards or balances; also shows you’re “responsible” by simply having the cards & not using them.
The other 10% of the time is when you have a ton of open credit available to you… this may hurt your chances of getting a new loan (auto for example), but this is fairly rare and generally only applies to people with, for example: $60,000 in available credit, but are applying for a $5k auto loan.
As far as how you pay it off, doesn’t really matter. If you can pay it off all at once, without breaking the bank, do it. The less interest you pay to the companies, the better off you are. Conversely, if you have a card @ 0%, and a card @ 3%, and a card @ 19%… payoff the 19% first, then the 3%, then the 0%.
Thats what i kind of figured. So my next question, is:
I have 2 cards, both are again very high utilization (1200$ card at 1100 and a 500 at 425) would it be better for me to try and get both below 75% (what i was told is an ok %) or focus on one card?
If i were to do it as originally planned, i would have just paid the 500$ card off and then worked on the other one slowly, but i’m thinking maybe try and get them both to half or at least below 75%.
Assuming that they are both at the same interest rate, I would personally p/o the $425 balance.
There are a few other factors, like how much the minimums are and such. Assuming that the minimum on both cards is $25:
You payoff the smaller card, and you have that $25 /mo to apply to the remaining card.
You’re better off having one card “maxed out” then having many cards that are nearto max.
^^Thats what i had planned. The minimum on the smaller card was only 18$ a month, but i paid 36 a month (double the min. it was my emergency gas card) so i thought the same, if i had that extra to put on the other card, and then it’s only maxed out for a little while.
i just paid off the smaller card a few minutes ago, now to work on the other one!
pay them off like he said the eaiser ones first or the one with less interest, then instead of cancelling put the card in an envelope and never use it again
