Go from 30% interest to 0% fast!
- Do you have maxed-out credit cards crushing your credit score? Or is your overall credit card usage high and keeping your score down?
- This simple process can get you back in the 700's fast, and save you lots of money in interest.
- Imagine you have $20,000 in credit card debt at 27% interest — if you pay 3% of the balance ($600) each month, it will take 553 months to pay it to zero and cost you $59,000 in total.
Step #1 — Get Your Score to 640+
- Focus on paying down any credit card you have that is over 80% usage to below 80% — this eliminates the maxed-out credit card penalty on each affected card over 90%.
- If you haven't already added your rental payment history to your credit report, now could be the time — adding your past rent to your report can jump your score even further, 40 points on average.
Step #2 — When Your Score Is at 640+
- Use the Credit Karma app and get a personal loan matched to you.
- The interest rate on this first personal loan may not be much better than the rate on the credit cards — don't worry, you'll only keep this loan for a couple of months.
- Get a loan that covers paying off all or most of your credit card balances, then make the payments to the cards with the funds from the loan.
- Within 1 month, your credit score will likely be in the 700–720 range.
Step #3 — When Your Score Is at 700+
- Use the Credit Karma app again and look for a personal loan with a lower rate — from a different company than the first loan.
- Upon approval, use the money from the second personal loan to pay off the first personal loan.
- Your second personal loan will likely be at 14%, with a payment around $465/month, paid off in 60 months for a total cost of $27,000 vs. $59,000 — and you can pay it down faster to save even more.
Step #4 — Maybe You Can Get 0% Interest
- Keep checking your Credit Karma app for 0% balance transfer offers.
- You could get a card with 0% interest for 12–24 months and use that to pay off the personal loan — now you're at zero interest and can pay off your debt much faster.
- Paying just the $600 minimum you had before will reduce your debt from $20k to $9k in just 18 months; if you can pay $1,100/month you'll be at zero balance in 18 months with no interest.
Keep This in Mind
- If you use the full card limit for the balance transfer, you'll end up with the maxed-out card penalty and a big score drop — only use up to 80% of the transfer limit.
- Consider getting 2 cards for a 0% transfer offer and splitting the loan balance between them.