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Old 11-11-2006, 11:57 AM
ren ren is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Sacramento, CA
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Default Re: Getting a lower interest rate

First things first, I hope you've read Pay Off High Interest First. I disagree slightly with the article on one point -- the author says to pay only the minimum on all other cards than your highest interest card. Putting just a little bit more than minimum (just a few dollars will do it!) toward all other cards means those cards will report to the credit bureaus that you are paying more than the minimum payment, which will help your credit score.

Helping your credit score is critical, because when you call the CC companies to ask for your interest rate to be reduced, a higher score makes you a lower risk customer and therefore more likely to get a lower rate. Other than that, I think the article gives a fabulous blueprint for paying things off.

I am not sure if there's a calculator for this on site (if so, I apologize for the off site link!), but this debt snowball calculator may be very useful in helping you to prioritize which debt to direct the bulk of your money at. It also will help you figure out how soon you can be something even better than down to 30% of utilization -- debt free.
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