Apply now or wait: CSP (looking for clarity through venting my situation)

[Dmic321]

Hello, I have a lot on my mind lately and thought maybe I could sort my thoughts and get some feedback here!

First let me lay out some basic info and numbers, then I'll get into how I got here and what my immediate plans are

My current situation, in numbers -

I'm 31 years old, gross income this year will be about 36k, more like 43k if you factor in tips (may or may not be reported...)

Current FICO score from experian is about 765 (dropped from 807, 2 months ago)

I have 3 cards:

Chase Freedom Unlimited: $8k limit, current balance $2735

Cap1 Quicksilver: $5.5k limit, current balance $1430 (Oldest account, started with this card 7 years ago)

Discover it: $5.9k limit, balance $0

Alright, so in the last couple months my credit usage has gone up significantly. It started with getting a large tattoo from an artist I've admired for years, they live in EU and were coming to NYC and I couldn't pass it up. Had a plan to pay this off in about 1.5 months, basically have. Tattoo was about 3k for a full back piece (its amazing). I also had some emergency car repairs to pay for immediately after getting the tattoo (fun!). Then a family emergency came up, I had to take about 2 weeks off work and travel quite a bit in that time period.

In the last 30 days I have been working lots of doubles and covering as many shifts as I can, throwing all of my extra money at my balances to get them to where they are now. Threw 2.5k at chase and paid a little more than double my minimum at cap1 (paid $150 the last two months). I plan to continue like this for the next couple months to pay all this off.

Here's where my consideration for Chase Sapphire Preferred comes in. I have two major plans for the next year, I need to move to NYC and I need to buy a new laptop. I film and edit skate videos in 4k, and I've been teaching myself 3d rendering programs like Maya and Blender and also using Zbrush and C4D and as I've been growing into these programs my current laptop from 2021 is starting to show its flaws. The new macbook is looking really good for me, but is also about $4k (3k after I trade in my current laptop). I will also need to be flying more than I'm used to, I have a 5 day trip to NY at the end of November, planning to fly to Nashville 2-3 times in the next 6 months to see family.. Once spring comes I'll probably need to fly to NY again a couple times to apply for jobs and see friends etc. There's also talks among my friends for a trip to EU end of summer 2025.

Just to mention this, I'm planning on selling my car right before my move (which will pay for the move).

After I pay off my current debt, I can put my laptop purchase on the CSP, get the SUB and immediately start snowballing my funds at it to pay it off in 3ish months. That SUB, plus points I'll earn booking travel for the year, plus my current 17k points on my Freedom Unlimited card will possibly pay for my flight on the EU trip.

That's my thinking. Does this all sound logical, or am I missing anything? Now I'm just wondering, should I apply for the CSP in the next week or two, or should I wait until my debt is mostly/fully paid off? About two weeks ago Chase was showing me as pre approved for the CSP, but it's not showing that in my app anymore. Not sure if they changed their mind or if there are periods where they just don't show those preapprovals. Anyway, if I apply sooner than later, would I be approved? Credit Karma says I have a very high chance, if that means anything lol. The advantage would be lowering my credit utilization while I continue to pay off my debt. The advantage to waiting is I'm almost 100% sure I'll be approved and I may even get a higher limit?

[Dmic321]

Also to update this I have been looking around and a lot of people say that the CSP is kind of an under-performer after the initial sign up bonus. I am open to looking at other cards, although merging my existing CFU points to the CSP didn't sound like too bad of an idea.

Another alternative, I've been floating the idea of just getting an apple card to finance my next macbook with 0% interest and also take advantage of the high yield savings account you can get with that. Don't have a savings account at the moment and at just above 4% it seems like a halfway decent way to accomplish two things at once. I wouldn't be earning any travel points towards any future trips, however the cash back on apple pay purchases going straight to savings combined with the ability to get 0% financing on apple stuff in the future is something I consider fairly valuable.

and no, I wouldn't really consider picking up both those cards at this time. I would like to keep myself at just 4 cards for the foreseeable future, one point being reducing the amount of inquires due to the fact I will probably pick one or maybe even two up while applying for jobs & apartments in NYC.

Again any input at all is greatly appreciated, and thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[SPChaser]

I think it's a good play to go for the CSP and Apple card. If you're planning on getting both then I would apply for them on the same day, so the hit of a HP is mitigated a bit. Btw, if you research on the site and else where, there's a means of not getting a HP with the Apple card. With Apple, you can see if you're pre approved or not with limit shown. With Chase, if you're not seeing a pre-approval anymore, you still can check Chase's pre-approval tool; however, I would recommend going in branch to apply for the CSP, as they are likely to have better signup offers. Good luck with the apps and move! 

[mgood]

Ideally,  get two of your cards reporting $0 balance and the other one under 9% of the limit. 

But I would at least get the two with balances under 29%.

I agree with the advice to apply in branch. The Sapphire Preferred often has a slightly better sign-up bonus when you apply in person.

[Dmic321]

Thank you both for your responses. Felt I was getting a bit ahead of myself with wanting to apply for the new cards solely to reduce my overall utilization, so I had already decided to wait until I get my balances lower before doing anything. your responses just reaffirmed that was probably the better way to go about it.

Chase's preapproval tool didn't show me any offers, so don't think its a good idea to apply until after I get CFU below 29% and Cap1 a bit lower as well. I was also only preapproved for a 3200 credit limit from apple card, hopefully getting my balances lower will yield me a higher limit the next time I check that.

Now I'm just wondering how to split my next round of payments, around the 5th of December I'll have another $1000 I can put towards my balances. Thinking this time I'll split it evenly between Chase and Cap1, this would put my Cap1 balance that much closer to a zero balance and would get Chase to a ~27.5% util.

[Dadof31978]

Sounds like you live above your means and are in debt with a spending problem....that's the honest truth.

[Dmic321]

I got a tattoo that was within my means. Then my car's water pump decided to fail and my dad had a stroke immediately after. Very unfortunate timing. I also have a hobby that requires a good [more importantly, working] machine, so yeah I'm going allocate my resources towards that. I also like to travel and my friends are talking about a trip to EU late 2025.. gonna eat ramen all year and allocate my resources to that as well. Because I'm still relatively young and would prefer to have experiences and fun in life. I didn't get to go to college and get a fancy job, so I'm going to make the most of the life I have. You know how I'm going to do all this.. by budgeting!!

If limiting my spending over a longer period of time in order to travel and buy a machine that supports my hobbies is "living above my means", and taking 2 weeks off work while traveling back and forth to move my dad's things to tennessee after his stroke is "having a spending problem" ... I don't really know what to say to you. Like did you actually read my post or just the numbers at the beginning?