hiya............. newbie here with a question and a rant..

[luvnspnful]

so............ ive become a huge fan of this site from lurking and browsing and i, on a whim, decided to pull my credit report to see if i've increased the digits a bit, well low and behold, they cant verify me.. . i figure its because i moved last summer and the knuckleheads at equifax and transunion have not updated. i tried every possible combo of usernames and passwords that i only ever register with and none worked! good grief,,,,,,,,,, what should i do now? i would phone but their help desk isnt open now until monday (it being a long weekend and all). i guess i could ask one of the friendly gents at my workplace to run it for me, but that would look like an actual inquiry right? dont want that

i must say ive found this site so much fun and very insightful. i had decided about 8 months ago to get this cc load under control and had started really socking on the payments. i could use some advice tho on how to get the last couple paid down.

card 1: visa- $6000ish @18.9%, and a recent BT of $2861 @3.9 until aug'07. currently paying from 300-600/mo on it and sometimes more.

card 2: amex-$5500 (was 7800) @16.9, pymt of 300-400/mo, and a few of 500 now and then.

card 3: tdct LOC: $3100 @10.0 apy, ( but interest charges are low,,, cant figure this one out). paying $250/mo.

i have some income tax refund money to throw at them, would u suggest i put it on the amex first (seeing as it has a fairly high %, or pay down the visa? i know that any payments made to it will only go toward the low % portion first, so is it still better to pay this one or the other?

eta: ive also worked on my EF- i have $2200 in a premium rate savings act (2.6%) and another $800 in my sons act. my secret stash chequing act has $1200 in it that im going to put toward one of these debts as well. my sort of estranged hubby gives me over 2k each month for bills (on top of my mediocre salary) so i have a fairly sizeable chunk to use for debt reduction- about 800-1100 depending on gas prices and variable expenses. hope thats enough info to get me started.

thanks so much for any advice and for all the splendid info!

[usnavy_233]

Pay the minimums on the Amex and tdct and sock the Visa HARD! Once the Visa is gone, start socking the Amex with everything you can. Then finish off with the tdtc. Even though the first $2861 will go to a lower interest debt, paying off Visa first will save you the most money in interest payments over the life of the debts.

[PrincessPerky]

ditto usnavy's post, only thing I might differ on is the amount of 'some' if the 'some' is enough to pay off either of the other two do that, other wise go down to minimums (or if your card still has interest higher than minimum for your sanity pay the interest plus minimum each month.)

[jIM_Ohio]

it will take you 31 months, minimum, to pay off cards with what you have budgeted now... I would concentrate efforts on visa @ 18.9% and possibly look to consolidate all these onto a lower interest card (0-5% would be MUCH better).

[luvnspnful]

thank you for all your replies. truly appreciated . my income tax refund is just under 1k so i will definately take your advice and plunk it on the visa. ive never been one to only pay just the minimums- i almost always at least double it, or pay the min, any new charges plus the interest and balance insurance premiums. i think ive actually accomplished a lot in the last few months- i started out owing 22k on Cc and i am now down to around 16ish. and thats without a real plan in place. im determined to wipe out this debthole within 2 yrs then i can tackle paying off my car- i just bought it last august and owe about 25k on it..........its already on accelerated bi-weekly payments so its going down. not much choice for 0% cards in canada. lucky to get a short term 2.9 or something but im hesitant to take on any more credit debt at all. i work for a bank so i considered it earlier, but even as employees we dont get much of a deal on lending product. i know my credit is very good- i have all R1 ratings and at last check(last june), my beacon score was 735. i figure its even better now that ive lightened the burden somewhat.

does anyone have a mathematical equation for payment amounts for me? i cant seem to find anything on line that will give me an actual breakdown for the snowball method into dollars for each debt.
thanks again and best wishes