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Hi! First time here! Here is our sad situation, lol!
We bought our current home almost 9 years ago and have definitely OUTGROWN it. We have been stuck since our kids came along and I quit my (VERY low wage) job to be a SAHM. My have essentially lived off of around $35K a year for YEARS. During that time we aquired around $18K in CC debt (I know! BAD!!!) . Since my kiddos are now in FT school....I have been able to work FT and by Jan. of 2013 we will be debt FREE! yeah! So......our current scores are 640 for husband and 679 for mine. Both of us have unpaid medical (well...we couldn't pay at first but now we are less than $300 away!) and the other 'bad' is due to credit to debt ratio.
First question is how can we raise our scores FASTER. Should we pay each credit card in full as we get the $$? Or, should we pay them down by 1/2? We would like to get a loan approval by next Spring......but I don't know where to start. Does it help at all that we have never been late or not paid our current mortgage? WE also just paid off our car loan and was never late on that as well.
FTR we aren't ever late or don't pay the CC bills......but have paid the minimum for YEARS
The biggest credit score increase for me was to lower my debt utilization.
This increased my score more than having a charge off of $5k deleted. It only added 12 points.
Having no missed payments is heling you more than you think.
Bank of America accidentaly had my payment history as late two months in a row, I got those corrected and my score jumped from 642 to 671.
Good luck and welcome to the community
I'd start with getting $0 balances to report as cards getting paid off. Utilization will go down and fewer cards with balances reporting will reduce the effects of supplementing all those years. Since there aren't any lates and only a few medical bills to deal with, you're probably closer than you think.
Wow! You guys are making me think its not as bad as I think! would it be better to pay our debt to below 50% first or pay off to zero balances? I would be THRILLED to be able to do this by next Summer!!!!!