Pay-Off Many Small Accounts or a Few Big Accounts?

Should I Pay My Big Balance Accounts First, Or Many Small-Balance Accounts

Read full question
Bill's Answer: Bills.com Resident Expert

Ask five different personal finance Web sites this question and you will get five different answers. Why? The equations Fair Isaac & Co., PLUS Score, and Vantage Score use to create their credit score results for consumers are proprietary, and are as closely guarded as the formulas for Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper. My answer is based on observing changes to credit scores, reading the tea leaves on Fair Isaac's Web site, and a US government report on how credit scores are calculated. In other words, it is a guess.

According to Fair Isaac, 35% of a credit score is based on credit history. It is the most heavily weighted factor used in calculating your credit score. Consistently paying your bills on time has a positive influence on your score, while late or missed payments will hurt you in this area.
If you have delinquent payments, the older the delinquency the less the negative impact on your score will be. Collection accounts and bankruptcy filings are also taken into consideration when analyzing your payment history.

Paying off 11 delinquent accounts will have a dramatic effect if they are recent delinquencies. If, on the other hand, they are more than 5 years old, then the damage they are causing to your credit score are small. Still, 11 is 11, and if you can clear off some or all of these with a pay-for-delete, you should see a positive impact on your credit score in 60-90 days.

On the other hand, if the three $100 delinquencies are recent, then paying those first will have a more immediate impact because as I mentioned above, it is not just the number of accounts or the dollar value of each account, it is also how recent the account went delinquent.

I hope this information helps you Find, Save, and Learn.

Best,

Bill

Bills.com

No Comments


Waiting for comments to load Loading more comments
Thanks for your feedback!
Thank you for subscribing!