Maintaining high balances on your credit cards and other revolving debt negatively impacts your credit score. Paying down credit cards balances below the 70%, 50%, and 30% thresholds is a quick way to boost your credit score.

If you do decide to pay off some of your credit cards, be sure to leave the cards open. The credit bureaus look favorably upon accounts that have been open for a substantial period of time, especially if they are showing a zero balance.

your credit maybe considered bad and causing a low score for a number of reasons. While there are numerous reasons for bad credit some of the more common ones are as follows. You have numerous credit cards that are maxed out or close to the credit limit, you have unpaid judgments or collection accounts, you have 30 day late payments showing on your payment history. All of these examples can cause severe drops in your credit score.

Improving your credit score can be as simple as spreading a large amount of debt on one credit card, over three or four different credit cards.

The best way to make your credit cards tax deductible is to consolidate them into a mortgage loan. Interest on mortgage debt is deductible while interest on credit cards or auto loans is not. You can save a lot of interest paid by consolidating your non deductible interest debt into a home loan.

Asides from the tax benefits of consolidating your credit cards into a refinance, the added benefit is you would then make only one payment instead of cutting multiple payments to different card companies each month.

After you pay the balance of your high interest credit cards off do not close the accounts out, leave them open. Closing accounts that have been open for a long period of time can negatively affect your credit score. A good alternative to closing accounts out is lowering the maximum credit limit’s of the credit card accounts you paid off.

A good measurement for considering a refinance or second mortgage to pay off credit cards would be the time in which you would be able to pay off the credit debt. Because of compounding interest if your credit debt would remain unpaid after three years of payments, consolidating your debt would most likely be beneficial.

Other large payments can be paid off as well. It does not have to be credit cards. You could pay off installment loans that you may have outstanding as well.

Secured credit cards are secured by money deposited into the bank for the amount of the credit limit. For example if you had a secured credit card with a $300 limit the issuing bank would require you to deposit $300 into their bank. This deposit guarantees to the lender that there will be not profit lost on a account with risky credit.