My post is two parts. First my equifax score stands at 580. I had $3,450 in credit card debt of $3750 total credit. That is a whopping 91%. I had some extra money so I paid them down and now I am at about $1876 or 49%. I plan to pay off the rest in September. I want to know how long it will take to impact my fico score and if anyone has an estimate as to how much it will be impacted. I also have to old accounts sitting in collections, totaling about $3000 that I will also pay off in September. The reason I want to know is because I am in a 2 yr home-buying program and I want to clean-up my credit and have it clean for 12 months by November of 2008 so that I can get a great loan. Will I be able to acheive this goal by then? The second part of my post is does anyone have any tips on refinancing an auto loan? What are the benefits? How long should I wait to refinance? What is the optimal credit score for an interest rate at or below 8%? (Right now I am at 13% interest which sucks , but I have only had the loan since March of 2007). Also, when paying off those two collection accounts, any tips on negotiating a settlement? I have no idea what I am doing and I want to pay as little as possible, seeing how most of that is fees and interest. I know these are a lot of questions, but I did not want to forget anything!!! Help!!