Hi, I'm new.
I have already come a very long way, and with the forums am hoping to get my scores up nice and high.
In 2001, I had my identity stolen. It decimated my credit, of course, and because the thief lived in the same apartment complex, many of my disputes were "validated" due to the same address. It took nearly 10 years to get all the issues removed from my report, and in the meantime I paid off my student loans, which left me with the dreaded no-score file. I had no credit history at all, which is worse than bad credit when you're over 30. I have great income, however.
Fortunately, I was able to AU on two of my spouse's cards (Target $500 and Chase $1775) to establish a credit history, and we qualified for a mortgage in 2011 with a 640 CS across the board. I've now had two years of house payments and in fall 2012 qualified for my first store cards from Macys ($300) and QVC ($190) - which is a random amount. I then got another from Lane Bryant (Comenity) which is a $250 CLI every couple of months. It's now up to $1750. Come summer, I applied for a few more: Overstock MasterCard (FNB of Omaha) $3500 and Wells Fargo Care Credit $3600. Lastly, I did a small app spree in October which resulted in Amazon Visa ($500) and Best Buy ($1000)
I did a little (lot!) of holiday shopping and now it's time to pay things off.
My current status is as follows:
TU: 670
EX: 662
EQ: 660
Best Buy: 750 on 1000 limit - 75% util
Chase Amazon 276 on 500 - 55%
FNB Omaha 1500 on 3500 - 43%
Wells Fargo 0 on 3600 - 0%
Lane Bryant 1050 on 1750 - 60%
Chase 1597 on 1775 - 90%
QVC 0 on 190 - 0%
Target 450 on 500 - 90%
TOTAL 5,623 on 12,813 - 44% util
plan of attack:
1. Pay all cards to below 70% util (Target below 350, Best Buy below 700, Chase below 1240)
2. Pay small $ cards to below 10% and large cards to below 50% then 30%
3. Pay large cards to below 10%
Thoughts? I'm open to suggestions. Ultimately, I'd like to see my numbers >760 by summer when we apply for a home renovation loan.
Thank you. I really appreciate the advice. I'll pay off the small balances first to $0, then get the big ones below 70%, 30%, etc as quickly as I can. I've been winging this process until now, and look forward to seeing the results of targeting in a smart way.