Strategy question for increasing my credit score..

[justrock]

I am planning to try and buy a house in about 10 months.  I have a BK discharged 1/08.  I also have 3 derogatories after that.  Two are medical bills, not much, about $300 all together.  The other is a utility bill for $300.  My utilization is high, but I have 10 months to deal with that.  

I will come into some extra money in a few weeks and would like to use it to repair my credit.  I've read here that medical bills aren't really held against you by LO's, but I thought if I did PFDs for those they are likely to be granted for just that reason.  Does it make sense to use my money for that?  That would leave just one derogatory account and I will try a PFD for that also.  Or should I use it to pay down my balances?  I can't buy for 10 months because I need to come off my son's auto loan (he will refinance under his own name in February) and I am in a first time home buyers club that will match my saving $4 to $1 up to $7500 ( as well as paying $500 towards closing costs) and I have to be in that for a minimum of 10 months.

I don't plan on opening any more TLs before mortgage application as I have 6 good ones with AAOA at nearly 5 years, so I figure paying off my balances right now isn't as important as removing the derogatories.

Does this plan make sense?  Any advice is appreciated, this forum has helped immensely in just a few weeks.

[RobertEG]

Payment history is weighted higher than util of credit, and major derogs, such as colelctions and charge-offs, are a killer in that highly-weighted category.

While medical debt may be viewed less skeptically in a manual review, the impact of a manual review is secondary to the scorie that results.

Collections are scorred as collections.

In my opinion, I would pursue PFD deletion.

[justrock]

Thank you.  I'll do that.