Good morning everyone, I am new to the forums but have been surfing them for about a week now and want to say thanks to everyone. Your guys advice and insight has changed my whole outlook of . I did have a question though.
Some back story, I am 22 currently in the Marine Corps. I am married and after pay and added benefits I make around 80 thousand a year. I pay $1,500 for rent each month and that is my highest expense. Since turning 18 I never had much of a grasp of my credit and raked up credit card debt and student loans. I currently have 14 credit cards, with a total credit limit of $34,100. Only 1- 90 day late about a year and half ago. And no other bad marks.
The past year, I have drastically got on top of things and paid off 9 of them. The last five are
Chase 2287/2500
NFCU 7872/10000
Chase 5520/6000
Star card 805/3000.
This puts me at a 49% Credit utilization rate. The highest interest rate is 17.49% on the NFCU all the others are around 12-13%. I also have a car loan at 9.95% with $11,000 remaining. Credit score is near 650 with all 3.
Me and my wife are looking to purchase a house in the next 6 months or so. I have not applied for a mortgage yet due to me wanting to get most my cards paid off while I am in on deployment so I can raise my credit score before applying. My main question is, I am considering getting a personal loan to consolidate all my credit cards and take out some of the $7872 at NFCU. I am looking at getting a $12,000 to accomplish this so once I apply for the mortgage I would have only about $6000 on my credit cards which would place my CUR at about 17%
I am looking to apply for a mortgage within the next 2 months and just basically need to try to raise my credit score to get a better rate. Is this a sound plan? or can someone offer better advice to help me make the best out of my situation. I appreciate all your guys help.
