Would love advice on credit rebuild - Where should I focus next?

[FICOgoddess]

Been reading posts from this community for over a year and I've learned so much in the past year!  However, my scores have been a little stagnant lately and I'm ready to see them go up some more.  Would love advice on where to focus next.  

I started out with 0 credit cards or loans besides Nelnet student loans with several lates from my days of delinquency and ignorance.  I'm now on the Income Based Repayment and hoping to get Public Service Loan Forgiveness in another 9 years (after 10 years of minimum payments) since I work for the government and my loans are ~$64,000.  Hope everyone agrees with that tactic.

Here's my synopsis of my FICO Score 3B report:

Applied for Capital 1 Platinum in April 2015 and received card with limit of $2000. Got regular increases up to $6150. Kept 0 balance.

Applied for Capital 1 Quicksilver Rewards January 2016 and received card with limit of $3000.  Got regular increases up to $5500. 

Applied for Discover Rewards May 2016 and received card with limit of $2000.  Got regular increases up to $3500, maintain 0 balance but working those rewards!

Applied for Amex Gold Delta Miles May 2016 and received card with limit of $1000. Got regular increases up to $3000, using $700 but 0% APR currently.

Just combined Capital 1 Platinum into Capital 1 Quicksilver for a limit of $11650 and carrying balance of $3400.  Have plan setup to pay all cards to $0 by 11/17 with $600 month.  Thinking of balance transfer from Capital 1 to Discover using a promotion of 0% APR once balance drops a little and won't bring utilization on that card close to max.

I am an AU on my mom's BOA card with ~$3000 balance on $17000 limit and opened August 1995.  This helps age my AAoA correct?

All cards on auto-payment and have never missed a payment.

Three collections: 1 on Experian for medical for $179 from May 2012; 2 medical bills on Transunion for $689 and $2305 both from December 2014.  Is it worth it to try for PFD on any of these or just let them age off?  

I have three inquiries on reporting on each of the all three CB that are all from between April-June 2016.

I have an auto loan that started at 17000 in January of 2015 and is currently close to 11000 (paying $100 more than $309 payment monthly).  Never missed a payment.

I have 18 student loan accounts currently reporting, although they have been consolidated into two active loans with Nelnet.  This is my weakest area I believe because the lates are bringing down my % of on time payments.  My two active loans reported late 4 times each (August 2013, September 2013, April 2015, May 2015).  Of the 16 closed accounts (all from US Department of Education) three of them have lates from June 2013, July 2013, December 2010, January 2011, February 2011, and August 2011). Unfortunately only the late student loan accounts reported to Experian so they only show 3 installment accounts and 11 current accounts total while TU and EQ each show 18 installment accounts and 27 current accounts.  It doesn't seem like anyone has had any luck with goodwilling Nelnet and that has been my experience so far.  I've asked several reps on the phone and sent one goodwill letter so far.

No Public Records but there is one closed account reporting as negative.  I settled for less than the full amount on a BOA credit card in April 2014.  This account was late a bunch of times (maybe 14 times) between February 2013 and March 2014.  This is pretty recent in my credit history too.  Is there anything that can be done about it.  I was indeed late and completely delinquent.  Balance was super low on the card but I was unemployed, overwhelmed, and under-educated.  Is there anything I can do about this?

No mortgage loan but I would like to be ready for this in about 1 year (spring 2018) once I get a salary bump.  

I just took a new job with USFWS and don't know what my current paychecks (minus insurance, 401, etc.) will look like quite yet but my salary is $50000 until next January when I'll bump to $60000.  I'm using mint.com to help with budgeting and prioritizing CC paydowns.  Current bills are pretty low besides student loans and truck payment.

I'm sure I left out some important info and will be happy to provide even more details.  Thanks in advance for any constructive criticism, advice, etc!

[RobertEG]

In consolidation of your federal student loans, did you ever complete a rehab program?

If so, you may have basis for removal of some of the monthly delinquencies.

Otherwise, the Higher Education Act normally requires reporting of lates on federal student loans, which can usually only be removed by an approved rehab program.

[FICOgoddess]

I did not complete a loan rehab program at any time.  Is that still an option?

[RobertEG]

No.

You can rehab a federal student loan that is currently delinquent by making approx 10 months of timely payments, at which point prior derogs can be removed and the account moved to another creditor.

If your account is not currently delinquent, you cannot rehab the delinquencies.

[Anonymous]

I would use your credit cards more. Dont use more than 30% and leave a small balance. I was taught that when I build my score to get my mortgage.  If you're not using credit, youre not building credit.  Thats what worked for me. 

[FICOgoddess]

Thank you!  I have several bills that are run through them each month and then I pay them down.  I almost never use my debit card anymore and make tons of payments every month. 

I'm trying to get better about paying attention to the dates they each report to the CBs, etc.

[Anonymous]

@FICOgoddess.

For optimum scoring, you need to have 1 account report UTI under 10% and the others report 0 balances.  Use the cards as much as you need to within the month, and make sure that the balances are paid off at month's end.  Once you get the balances down to where you can utilize this strategy, you should see an increase in your scores.  If the AU account has UTI greater than 10%, you lose the positive affect of the AAoA.  UTI makes up 30% of your credit score, while AAoA makes up 15% of score.  Also, payment history makes up 35%, so getting UTI under control is something you can do to rigt now to improve your score. 

[FICOgoddess]

Thanks @kaykay65.  I should be at 0% on all cards except carrying the ~10% on one by November at the latest.  Likely can get there even earlier but set that as a realistic goal.  I'll talk to my mom and see if she plans on getting to a lower UTI and if not I'll drop off her account.  Getting added helped me out earlier in the journey but I might not need that anymore.  That's a great point I hadn't thought of yet.

I guess I'm most concerned about my payment history and if there is anything that can be done there.  I'll keep trying to goodwill with Nelnet but don't know if I can actually get any of those removed.

Also curious if my paying the collections (PFD hopefully) would help my scores very much or if I should let them age off...

[Anonymous]

@FICOgoddess.

If the collections are updating monthly, then paying off the collection will help your score in the long run; if it is not updating, then you can ride it out, but then you have to deal with continued collection activity from now on whether it ages off or not.  I like having the knowledge that the debt is taken care of and future creditors see that I've taken care of my obligations.

[FICOgoddess]

Okay, time for an update:

I've seen a few minor fluctuations in my scores but only due to slight changes in reported balances.  I've started the HIPPA process of disputing my three collection accounts. My Discover Card increased my limit from $3500 to $3800 and my Amex Gold increased my limit from $3000 to $6000.  Pretty excited about that last one.  Hope to see some bumps from increased CL.

All of my UTI are below 30% right now and overall my UTI is 19.6%.  Working on getting below 10% overall while still using all of my cards regularly.  This is easier now that I've combined my two Capital One cards.

I think all of my lates with Nelnet are a lost cause for now.  Wondering about the BofA card that I settled...I haven't heard much about success with GW to BofA but I'm going to try it.  Any advice there?