Free Credit Repair Tips 10 - Lower High Credit Card Balances

Free credit repair tips 10 is designed to help with your credit card problem. Remember that lenders cannot see what your wages are on your credit report. Unfortunately, it does show if you have a high card balance.

In other words, if you are "maxed out" or not on them. This gives them a strong indication of your spending habits. And may give them an inkling of a spending problem. Why does that concern them? If they get the idea that you're exceeding your income, then they may fee you may not be able to afford a home.

According to the reporting agencies, high card balances means the possibility of credit problems in the future. I'm sure your intentions were good, but with high balances on your cards, that produces a poor credit score. If these balances are near the limit set by these lending institutions, it could be the reason for your low score. High balances count against the score as much as 35%.

How Can You Get These High Credit Card Balances Down?

When you have a credit card problem like high balances with late payments or collections, you're may be in trouble! Lenders will view this as dangerous. Why? Because it indicates you are a problem borrower.

Here are some things you can do:

• Pay more than the minimum payment
• Move some of the debt to another credit card
• Stop charging while you are paying down

There are some other tips that you can use with this but let's take a closer look at these.

Pay More Than the Minimum Payment

Take a close look at your finances. How much are you eating out, going to the movies or other fun activities? Can you budget some extra money? Now figure you will pay an extra $10, $20, $50, or even $100 plus your minimum payment. I usually like to take whatever the interest is for that month, plus the minimum payment, plus the extra amount I plan to apply. That will be my payment that month. I also encourage no longer using that card. If you are spending on the card more than you can pay each month, you will not make headway. So get tough with yourself, use free credit repair tips 10.

If your budget doesn't have enough money in it to pay extra, you may need to hire a credit counseling service to help you. Or you may need to get additional work to have the extra money. But don't have fun with that extra money. Remember why you found extra work.

Move Some of the Debt to Another Credit Card

This is tricky because now you will have two minimum payments. If you cannot afford the one, then you will not afford two cards. But if you can afford two minimum payments plus a little extra, then you can use a balance transfer to get the high credit card down. Two cards that are not even close to being maxed out are better than one that is close to the limit.

If you can find a zero percent credit card, that is even better. You can work on paying it down for that year you have the zero percent interest rate. But watch the balance transfer fees! So shop for a card that has low to no balance transfer fees and a zero down interest rate. Now you are seeing how free credit repair tips 10 works!

Today there are credit card promotions you can take advantage of while you are trying to get those balances down. It will take discipline. If you have trouble with disciplining yourself, then get help from a credit counseling service.

Stop Charging While You are Paying These Credit Cards

For free credit repair tips 10 to work, you must stop charging. One of the disciplinary measures I used on myself was to pay all the new charges, plus that months interest, plus the extra I wanted to put toward the balance each month. One month we lived on very little for groceries. But I was making myself get used to the changes I needed to make. We also didn't get to take a vacation for a long time. But it worked, we got those high balances paid down.

I Have Several Cards - Which do I Pay First

I get asked this question all the time. The method I have used is pay on the smallest balance one first. Why? You can get them paid off the quickest. Once that card is paid for, I take the amount I was using for it and apply it to what I'm paying monthly on the next smallest card. Once that card is paid for then I take the amount I was paying of the two cards and apply it to the next one. Once again you must stop charging for this to work.

This is a slow process and if you need your credit score improved quickly, then work on the high balances until you get them down enough where they won't affect your score. But don't stop, move to the small one and proceed to get it paid off. Having succeeded in paying a credit card off gives you such a good feeling.

Of course using free credit repair tips 10 will require a lot of discipline. Even if you choose to move some of the debt. You will still need to work on paying this debt off. Proceed to free credit repair tips #11 next.

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