amount of score jump?

[Anonymous]

if i eliminate all of my outstanding credit card debt, how many points should my score jump? i know it could be different based on the situation, but i was wondering if the points added would be minimal or substantial. my scores are TU:683  EQ:663 EXP: 618...... my goal in all of this is to be able to get a car loan at a good rate on my own, without having to use my dad as a cosigner (my current loan is a cosigned one through western federal credit union @ 6.25%). thanks for the advice guys and gals

[haulingthescoreup]

Can't do an "after" without the "before!" What was your util before? (amount owed divided by credit limit) Plus there are other things that people here will want to ask.

But in general, if your util has been high, over 50% for instance, the fastest and most dramatic jump that you will see is paying down your cards to where they report at under 10% on each one, whatever that one's credit limit is. You should have around a week or ten days after that balance reports to then pay it off. Get familiar with the dates that your CC's report, and learn to pay down to 1-9% beforehand, let it post, and then PIF (pay in full.) If you enjoy torture, go for under 5%.

Please understand that this is a crazy way to live the rest of your life. But if you are coming up on a planned credit app, whether car loan or mortgage, this is a great goose for your scores. One day, when you have a bunch of credit accounts, you will find that it's better to only let half of them report each month, to a max of 5 or 6 or so, but for now, this is a good short-term tactic. Good luck on the wheels!

[Anonymous]

right. i have 9000 in debt, 4 cards and all are over 90% of the credit limit. i have money from a signing bonus from a job, i dont plan on living this way at all, just thought a good use for the cash would be to pay off the cards and just use one of them, keeping that one card's balance below 5%. im graduating in december and liquidity wont be as much of an issue, ill be making excellent money and living under my means. i obviously messed up in college with not using my cards wisely an having high balances, but i have learned my lesson.

[haulingthescoreup]

If you don't have any baddies (late payments showing on your reports, collection, all the miseries), reducing your util that dramatically should result in a huge jump. The reports will show your high balances in the past, and I don't think that's factored in the scores, but future lenders will see it and might need some reassurance that you've changed your ways.

After you do the initial pay-off-everything-and-let-one-report-5%, you might do some gentle experimenting with letting several report at under 5%, but it takes a while to see the results.

I hate to pick numbers out of the air. Are the scores you listed actually FICO scores, or from another site? If they don't have the dopey gold FICO seal on them, they're pretty worthless. If you pull your FICO scores, both EQ and TU have a simulator function, and you can do various what-if's. One is to pay off all your cards, and it will give you a predicted score range. Those scores aren't guaranteed, but the sims can help in decision-making. By the way, you will see that you will get an even higher projected score bump with the pay down your cards over 24 months. As best as I can tell, that is saying pay them down and keep them down, and behave yourself generally for 2 years. No one here can figure out why you would do better to pay slowly.

There are older, bolder posters who might be willing to do some predictions. Your post had already moved on to the second screen; if it does that again and gets buried, type "bump" and get it back up to the top again.