Credit Utilization Question

[Anonymous]

Here’s Run Down;

$31k in cc debt, $2k mine the rest are AU cards. Puts me around 42% Util
Auto loan $8k
Mortgage $314k
Credit AoA 6 year 10 month
$90k income solo/ $142k combined income with spouse

Looking at my profile is young, didn’t start credit until 18. I am seeing online with different budgeting and credit tools that based off my credit profile and income I only have around $28k available to borrow. I’m not a pro at this so the quote of available borrow amount could be BS. But I am wondering if that does sound somewhat true if perhaps I have overloaded my profile and need to take the AU cards off my profile. My wife only has these cc on her profile no other houses or cars and her scores are significantly higher then mine. Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

How many credit cards do you have of your own?  Not AU cards?

Do I understand right that your wife has 29k of credit card debt?  Have you two huddled about the possibilty of paying all of that off?

Have you pulled your credit reports?

You mention that you have a "Credit AoA 6 year 10 month."  Do you mean an AAoA?  (Average Age of Accounts?)  If so, what tool are you using that is giving you your AAoA? 

[Anonymous]

I have 4 of my own she has 6 of her own.

Yes we have huddled up about a PayOff date and we have in 30 days went from 72% to 42% utli. Paid off $4500 of debt. We had recently a tax bill , dental work, appliances break, our grass died so i put sod in , fixed a badly damaged fence due to weather and drainage issue in our yard. These issues are what not only drained our 2 months savings but also put us further into debt. Our payoff date is 12/1/18 because we are throwing everything we can at the debts. We will be at a 0 dollar amount across all accounts. 

My Fico info :

Ex - 696

EQ - 704

TU - 687

Apps show my UTI @ 52%

Hers : 

EX - 726

EQ - 760

TU - 732

Apps show her UTI @ 38%

She is not a AU on any of my cards.

We have done total credit check and use CK , credit wise, wallet hub, credit seasme and nerd wallet to monitor. However we haven't done the myfico yet which we probably should, seeing that we are paying debt we decided to save the monthly cost. 

And yes I meant AAOA. 

[Anonymous]

Some of those credit monitoring services (e.g. Karma) display faulty values in their summary page for AAoA.  That's because Karma's summary page counts only open accounts in its AAoA computation.

Credit Check Total should be accurate and its scores are FICO 8 as well.  (You can also get their 3B report and scores for a buck.)  Your decision to avoid expensive credit services given that you have debt to pay off makes a lot of sense.

Are you planning to buy a house or a car this year?  If not, then I am guessing you don't really have a need for a high score.  I'd just focus on paying off all your debt.  The one things you do need to confirm is that neither of you have any derogs: lates, collections, chargeoffs, liens, judgments, public records, etc.

[Anonymous]

We do have some goals we are hoping we are done with this debt by Dec 2018. Once that is done we will start reaching our other goals such as buying a new truck, HELOC.  I did have 1 negative ( late pay ) but i resolved it with a goodwill letter. My wife has a previous short sell so shes not on my current mortgage and i think it might still be impacting her credit. 

[Anonymous]

Nice job with the late removal via GW!

No need to pay for monthly credit monitoring service IMO when you can use a bunch of free services like you already are that are more than suitable to satisfy your needs right now.

[Anonymous]

I am looking into this idea would love some input.

If I removed myself from 3/4 AU accounts wouldn't that intially decrease my scores but after say 30 days possibly increase the scores and decrease the utlization? 

[Anonymous]

Decreasing utilization in general does increase scores.

But the thing is, you only need higher scores when you are planning on using them for something soon.  E.g. buying a house, a truck, etc.  You do plan to do that, but you say your plans are to do that only after your joint CC debt is entirely paid off (great idea, btw).  When your CC debt is all paid off, your utilization will already be ultralow, and there will no longer be an advantage to having been removed as an AU.

[Anonymous]

Wife and I were thinking of stopping the AU to free up some leandable credit limit. Which in turn we would trade in our car, finance the truck then pay off the truck with cash within 3 months. It seems like a lot of hassle but we thought it would be a good idea.

[SBR249]

You mentioned that you had drained your savings to pay for some unexpected and urgent expenses. Once you have the CC debt paid off (I know there are some members who would advocate for even earlier than that), I would recommend that your next priority be to rebuild your savings. Having a cushion for unexpected expenses would give you peace of mind and hopefully stop another slide into CC debt in case there's a repeat. In fact, I would say, take a longer term auto loan in favor of rebuilding savings, it's important to get into a habit of putting money aside as soon as possible. Your target should be 3-months savings minimum, ideally 6-months to a year.