I'm so frustrated.   I've been working on my debt for about 7 months.   I started with a TU score of 515 and it's now at 678.   But one week ago it was at 685.   My "next step" listed on this site was to lower my debt as I had a car loan that was over 20,000 and "most high achievers have debt under $5000".   So I took some of my down payment savings and paid off my car.    So I have no debt now...and it lowered my FICO.   I was trying to get it higher to get a better home mortgage loan.     I would never have done that if the "next step" hadn't told me to do so on the site.    Why would paying off my car lower my FICO - nothing else has changed?    I have two credit cards with 0 balance and outstanding credit limit of $5000.    I have nothing in collection.    The only "bad" on my report are some old medical bills that went into collection in 2008 - but have been paid and one revolving credit loan my husband took out jointly that he didn't pay on for over 120 days -  but I paid it off and it is closed.