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Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?

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KeithW
Frequent Contributor

Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?

I have spent the past few years improving my credit score. The problems it had were some small medical collections, a First Premier CC collection and settlement, and finally a couple 60 day old payments 4 years ago. During this time my score has very slowly, but surely improved from around 560 up to the scores listed below.

 

Meanwhile my wife had similar medical collections, a judgement and a bank CC that she let go into collections over a dispute on the fees they charged. A couple of months ago she paid all that off and within 4 months her FICO scores are only about 10-25 points below mine!

 

I am happy hers have improved, but I am confused about why hers shot up and mine move up like molasses. Somthing odd though is that even though her scores are only slightly lower than mine the CC companies seem to give her much lower limits than mine do. Her highest limit is $1000 where mine is $2500. Any thoughts on this?

EQ671 TU673 EX662
Message 1 of 7
6 REPLIES 6
thom02099
Valued Contributor

Re: Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?


@KeithW wrote:

I have spent the past few years improving my credit score. The problems it had were some small medical collections, a First Premier CC collection and settlement, and finally a couple 60 day old payments 4 years ago. During this time my score has very slowly, but surely improved from around 560 up to the scores listed below.

 

Meanwhile my wife had similar medical collections, a judgement and a bank CC that she let go into collections over a dispute on the fees they charged. A couple of months ago she paid all that off and within 4 months her FICO scores are only about 10-25 points below mine!

 

I am happy hers have improved, but I am confused about why hers shot up and mine move up like molasses. Somthing odd though is that even though her scores are only slightly lower than mine the CC companies seem to give her much lower limits than mine do. Her highest limit is $1000 where mine is $2500. Any thoughts on this?



As you probably know, there are multiple factors that make up a credit score.  Length of history.  Income.  Debt to Income Ratio.  Number of tradelines.  Number of tradelines in good standing. Number of derogatory issues.  Unless both of you started your credit journey at exactly the same time, there's likely a difference in you AAofA.  Same thing with your salaries; if there's a difference and the ratio of debt to income differs, the result will impact scores. 

 

It's commendable that both of you are improving your scores, and that BOTH of you are making progress.  Don't worry, there may be a time that your score will shoot up, a time when, perhaps you add new TL with good CL and you'll see a positive result from this.  All of us reach plateaus at times.  Not to worry!  Keep making progress!

 

ONWARD AND UPWARD!

Message 2 of 7
pizzadude
Credit Mentor

Re: Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?


Just to clarify, FICO scoring does not consider either your income or your DTI. Neither of those factors are included in FICO scoring.

Your available credit vs credit limits ( utilization ) is considered, but not income.
March2010 FICO® ~ 695 TU, 653 EQ, 697 EX
Message 3 of 7
thom02099
Valued Contributor

Re: Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?


@pizzadude wrote:

Just to clarify, FICO scoring does not consider either your income or your DTI. Neither of those factors are included in FICO scoring.

Your available credit vs credit limits ( utilization ) is considered, but not income.

Thanks for the clarification...I stand corrected! Smiley Embarassed

 

  I was thinking more along the lines of credit granting rather than the actual FICO scoring process; that lenders may look at those things, whereas FICO doesn't. 

Message 4 of 7
pizzadude
Credit Mentor

Re: Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?

Yeah, that's right ~ creditors will certainly look at your income when evaluating an app, but FICO does not factor it in.
March2010 FICO® ~ 695 TU, 653 EQ, 697 EX
Message 5 of 7
KeithW
Frequent Contributor

Re: Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?

My biggest surprise was that having a judgement on her record that was paid off just a few months ago didn't cause a major hit to her score. Other than that our recent history isn't too different.

EQ671 TU673 EX662
Message 6 of 7
mtrsprt
Frequent Contributor

Re: Wifes Score Raising Faster Than Mine. Why?

I have found that scores bump up faster from the bottom.  They kind of plateau around the 620 mark.  Then you have to wait even longer to bump up to the 650-680 mark.... And so on..... 

 

I went from 522 to 622 in 6 months.....  It's taken me 1.5 years to go from 622 to 660.....  It's a long road...


Starting Score: 521 TU, 597 EQ, 574 EX on 6/20/2011
Current Score: 753 TU, 764 EQ, 766 EX on 02/17/2014
Goal Score: 720-740 Across the board


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