Hi CreditRat! Glad this has been of help to you.
I personally think the combined CK/CC approach is a great one, especially for someone on a budget. Here are a few other suggestions, which you can take or leave as best helps you out.
CK/CC is a great joint tool. The key is knowing what to ignore. Tend to ignore the advice it gives you, especially if either site suggests that you need more accounts. Both sites make their money as being a gateway through which people apply for more credit cards, so they have a bias toward suggesting that you need a lot of accounts in order to have a good score. You do need a reasoanble number accounts but you don't need nearly as many as they will suggest.. Also, if you have a fair number of closed accounts, you should ignore the AAoA computation CK gives you, since it will be based only on the number of open accounts.
If you can, try to benchmark the scores against a real FICO 8 score. Just once a year maybe. Then you will get a sense of how your FICO differs from the Vantage. Vantage is a much more helpful score than it used to be. The latest model was recalibrated to be in the 300-850 range and it's just better and more accurate in a lot of ways. So if you are on a budget it's a good option -- especially if you are looking at what the V-score does relative to itself. (E.g. if the TU V-score takes a substantial dive, take that seriously: look at your TU report etc.)
Finally if you ever find a way to get regular free Experian reports, let me know! Best of luck...
