@Anonymous wrote:
Looooong time lurker first time poster. I have not used much credit since my divorce in 2001. Did not want to fall into debt being a single mom at the time.
I've has car loans and a small $2k CC from my CU and a LOC.
Kids are nearly all grown I'm looking to buy a small house in the spring. Credit Scores never seem to go above 720.
So, today, I braved up. And went a Lil crazy. But I can't wait to watch this garden grow.
Barclay apple rewards $2k instant
Banana Republic $300 instant
Amazon $600 instant
American Eagle $300 instant
Dillard's $900 instant, how do I know I'd this is store or amex? Said my temp was $360, weird.
LL bean visa $500 instant...which I put my son on as AU, because he is 16 and I want him to learn about the importance of credit
Walmart $150 (lol) instant. This happens to be about the amount I spend on groceries for myself, and 2 young college kids still at home. I will use it for that and PIF at the money center.
Question is...is it OK not to use those store cards? And still get decent CLI as they grow?
Or do I need to *gasp* go shopping?
And is this enough for now to get some differences showing. I was planning on the garden until after I find a house in the spring.
Thank you for all the fantastic advice . I've been reading a LOT 😀
First of all Congrats.
Dillard's card, yes you can apply for amex on their website. It should tell you on the approval page which you card you were approved for. Looking at your approved credit limit and your temp Credit limit, i can almost guarantee you that you got approved for the AmEx. Once your get the card and call in to activate, they will lift that temp limit, but it will take you sometime to see that limit removed i your account when you set it up online. So don't freak about it 
Walmart, use it once for about $100 / $125 and pay it in full, wait until about 2 weeks after your first statement, call in or better do an online chat and request for credit limit increase. I got approved with the same amount, and right after my second statement, which was not even 2 months yet, i got CLI for $3500. You will get a pretty good credit limit increase very soon. When they ask how much you want, dont be shy to ask high, ask for $5K and they will probably counter offer you $3500. Even if you dont use it much, it is good for your overall utilization.
If you will not use the cards, then close them. An inactive reporting card on your credit report may not help you much, but bring down your avarage account age.
If you use them, you will benefit more. You do grocery shopping anyway right? Then why not put it on your walmart card. Or you can even rotate the cards every month. One First use walmart, pay it off, because you need a cli on that card for sure. Next month use your Barclays card, for groceries and stuff. $2K is a good starting limit, that's what i started with too and on that card i am not in a rush to get a cli.
And most important one, you stated your scores are not going up above 720. I may know why you are stuck there. Even though there are different levels of credit such as poor fair, good, excellent, there are also different groups of people based on their credit scores. This is called bucketing. You may have never had one single late payment in your life, but have only one credit card, and lets assume your credit score is 680. If you feel like you are stuck at that score and you are not moving up anymore, that's because the bucket you have reached the max score that the bucket you are in allows you to. You can make on time payments for another 10 years but you will have a very hard time reaching 700. So what you need to do is move up one bucket. That bucket is for the people with more revolving accounts, bigger credit limits, and such. This is done by fico scoring system. So someone with 3 revolving accounts, one or more installment accounts, but with only a few years of credit history will reach a higher score a lot faster than you will. So this is where those new accounts come in to play. You want to use them, but use them wisely, and get CLI's to move up a bucket so that you can be revised along with the bigger boys and reach higher scores. If not, you can be the samrtest student in the class, but if you are not able to move up to next grade at the end of the year, you will stay in let's say 4th grade forever. You did a good job getting new trade lines, so now all you need to do is manage them wisely, and in no time, you will see your scores going up. There are some nice blogs here about rebucketing. I just read them recently and it made a lot of sense and completely changed the way i look at my credit report and credit socres. Hope this helps you.