@disdreamin wrote:Not to hijack the thread but...yeah, I'm hijacking.
How in the WORLD do you get to 3x or 4x credit lines to income?! I am pretty darn sure the banks would *never* extend me that kind of credit. What am I doing wrong?! I got 4506t'd with AmEx trying to go up by a few thousand before. Sheesh. I need to learn from y'all. So please teach me, oh guru's of credit!
To keep this at least somewhat on-topic, OP, your idea of keeping it to 1.5 times income seems about right to me. If I do personal income, I'm about 1:1 right now. However, my SO and I share all cards, so it's less than 1:1 for household (adding up all our credit lines, and all cards but one are my cards). I think I'm doing something wrong here though, as it seems like maybe I'm shooting for too low a number?!
Im at about 3.25x income and I couldnt even get 2x until my CRs were totally clean and Fico was in excess of 730, once it hit 760+ it opened the door to even higher limits and more cards. Keep your DTI low and your overall reported revolving credit utilization low and it opens up a much better world.
I'm now at 5x my income. Let your usage report! Keep utilization below 10%. I keep mine around 2%. Stay away from excessive amounts of store cards. I don't have any. Though I wouldn't mind a Lowe's card. Once you're around 730 and above with clean reports...the sky is the limit!
@disdreamin wrote:I'm nowhere near 1:1 credit lines to income and I am still continually surprised that companies are willing to extend me more credit.
Then I see people with 3xTCL to income and I'm like WHAAAAAT?!?! So I'd say once things are all cleaned up you're probably good to go. They'll let you know when you get there, as you'll see denials instead of approvals when you decide to apply for additional credit, right?
1) Have a job that pays very well
2) Have a job that requires a lot of travel where travel expenses are close to annual income
3) Work for a company that allows personal credit cards to be used for T & E.
4) Build up CLs based on big charges and perfect payment history.[aggregate CL = 2x to 3x annual income]
5) Get tired of 80% travel and settle for a job paying 1/2 the salary of the road warrior job.
Boom! aggregate CL now = 4x to 6x annual income.
@Anonymous wrote:I'm at more than double my annual income. Of course, double squat is still squat.
^^^^ This is me as well... LOL! 
It seems that for people with more modest incomes (like myself) having total credit lines that are multiples of our income isn't that out of the ordinary. Contrast that with somebody who earns $200k per year... most likely they won't have a need for $800k in credit lines even if they can qualify for it.
If you look you'll be able to find exceptions, of course. 
UncleB wrote:It seems that for people with more modest incomes (like myself) having total credit lines that are multiples of our income isn't that out of the ordinary. Contrast that with somebody who earns $200k per year... most likely they won't have a need for $800k in credit lines even if they can qualify for it.
If you look you'll be able to find exceptions, of course.
Quite true.
There are posters making over $500k per year with an aggregate CL under $200k and others likely making $60k to $80k with aggregate CLs over $200k. Once you get past a certain dollar amount, transactions generally aren't credit card based - so limited benefit in $500k and higher CLs.
It is an interesting topic because you do see some lopsided numbers when comparing the income to limits. The amount made must not factor in as heavily as you would think. No true rhyme or reason to this, apparently.
