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First off, Which card is better Discover Card or Visa? Why? Thanks in advance for any comment. My other question... I have $11,000 in savings but owe $6,000 total on two cards ($3K on each). One card is at 5.9% for life and the other at 0% for 6 more months (after that it goes up to 9.9%). I've only been sending each of them about $200/month because I've been building up my savings. I have the ability to save $1K each month or suspend my savings each month and send $1K to this debt.. |
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That's a good question. I'm not sure what is the right answer. I'll do some poking around and get back to you if I bump into an answer. You should email the people at Discover Card as they probably could give you help..
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Well, it's $22, and more....you never know what might happen - cash will always help.......it's not just $22, but also security - who knows, god forbid, something happens to OP - pick any of the bad things that can happen...then, he can use that $3k, and do minimum payments until he is better...
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My credit limit on one of these cards is $40K and on the other it's $21K so I guess that puts me under 10% utilization on one and about 14% on the other...
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Ok, based on this, I am thinking something different than what I mentioned before - 5.9% is not too bad, soon you will have a mortgage at 5+%....but your savings are way below of where you need to get for down payment..
If paying (with Discover card) a house this year - pay minimum payments on both cards, and accumulate money for the house.....also, if the 0% card resets to above 10% interest after 6 month, then pay it off then.. VK.. |
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+1.
You definitely want a 20% down payment, preferably even more. What are your credit limit on these cards? If you're buying a house, you'll want the best possible FICO before they pull, so try to get your utilization down as low as possible, but don't sacrifice that 20% down payment for a boost in utilization... |
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Thanks for all the advice thus far. Yes, part of the reason I haven't paid these off yet is because of my plans to buy a house. I qualify for a VA loan (no downpayment) but it probably makes sense to still make a downpayment of some sort (I'm still debating that). My FICO scores are all in the 757 - 784 range even with these two $3K balances. My total utilization is only 3% if you look at the $6K balance against my credit actually available..
This post has been edited by outofdebt: 28 January 2010 - 02:56 PM.. |
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Outofdebt, don't forget closing costs....also, VA loans are more expensive...also, VA loans require 3.5% down payment minimum (as far as I know)....lastly, closing costs are 1-2% of the loan, so, if your loan is going to be 300k, prepare $6k for closing costs....of course, you can always add this to loan balance, but your rate can increase....Go to zillow, and get a loan quote for approximately the amount of loan you would need...and then, contact lender to get GFE estimate which would detail all costs, etc..
VK.. |
