Hi everyone!
Today has been an interesting day. As stated in my previous thread, I woke up to an auto-CLI from Discover from $4500 to $9500, then brought up my two Synchrony store cards from $5000 to $6000 and $7000 to $10000. That was nice.
Now I want to start doing some fine-tuning.
My wife and I recently purchased a house from her parents (bless them) a couple of months ago. The mortgage is not reporting on my credit. I am the owner, she is the joint. We got a stellar rate, by the way, at 3.25%. I am now wanting to seriously optimize my credit so we can get the lowest rates if we do need to pull out an emergency loan. I am wanting to use cards for fine spending but do not want to live in debt.
To go back a bit, back in 2017 I started a home business on credit. That was a huge mistake. With the house we were able to zero out most of our cards, and I have a huge chunk of unemployment coming. We're going to wipe out the balances on our last two cards—both credit union cards (our Rivermark and Alliant card.)
Fast forward to recent, and my new car which I purchased in 2014 was just totaled out from insurance. Some guy ran me off the road during a merge. So now I'm out a car, but the $6000 left on the payment is about to be wiped out. Insurance is sending just over $10,000 for it, so that will take out the only installment loan on my credit.
Data points:
Overall credit usage: 17%
Currently Reporting Credit Limits: $41,000
Next statement cut Credit Limits: $50,000
Debt:
Credit cards: $6,833
Loans: $6,601 (the car)
Collections: $0 (no collections via EX or TU, $0 reported on 1 coll. EQ)
Total Debt: $13,615
12 Open Accounts:
8 Open Credit Cards
1 Auto Account
3 "Self Reported" (Experian)
Inquiries: 5 hard inquiries
1 from a mortgage
1 from Rivermark
1 from Chase
1 from Discover
1 from Sprint
Average age of accounts: 5 yr 1 mo.
Oldest account: 11 yr 3 mo (Authorized User - Chase Freedom)
What I would like:
- Overall I am satisfied with my cards. I would like a really nice cashback anywhere card, but I am not eligible for many of them because I live in Oregon.
- I would like to lower the APR on my Rivermark card, but the card I have is no longer supported, and they would need to change me to a new card if I would also like a CLI. Right now that card is sitting at $5k, but after a talk on the phone, she said (through Experian) it would take a hard pull and at my credit score, $10-15k is not out of reach at the lowest APR of 5.40%. That card is our emergency overdraft account, so in case we miss something (we're human) it's nice not to be taxed on it as harshly. Right now I'm at 9.90% APR on the older card. If I go for the better card, underwriters may close my old account, which is one of my longest reporting. The only longer is the Chase Freedom I am an authorized user with through my wife.
- I think I am okay for gas, with my Costco Visa card. That is 3% cash back or 4% at Costco. Is 4-5% anywhere for gas possible?
- For grocery shopping we go to WinCo, which does not take credit cards and saves us a ton of money because the food there is cheaper, offsetting the need for a credit card to go grocery shopping. However, we do like to grocery shop at New Seasons and other nice stores for hoity-toity chocolate and some harder-to-find ciders, so maybe a 5% cash back card for groceries?
I try to rotate my cards when I can, but I'd really like to have great cards for specific purposes, and less of this 1% cash back everywhere spam going to a single card.
I have called Convergent Outsourcing, they are providing me with a receipt so I can dispute the $0 PAID OFF collection on my Experian file. That should work if I upload it to Experian, correct? It already shows as disputed.
Should I wait for some of this stuff to be paid off with the car and the couple of credit cards showing a balance (the Rivermark card is actually almost maxed but we can KO it this month if we want thanks to). Also the mortgage isn't reporting yet. Note that if I pay off the car my credit mix will change, I think.
Thanks everyone! If you have suggestions for cards or courses of action, please share them here! I am ready to soak knowledge!
@Kforce wrote:1) Your mortgage will cover the "Fico Credit Mix", so don't fret about car.
2) We need a list of you cards, and your spend in common reward categories for meaningful "replacement / new" card suggestions.
There are lots of good cards but with out knowing your spend our suggestions are just our favorites not necessary a fit for you. Random suggestions will also overlap cards you already have.
Hey thanks for the response.
Good news on the car/mortgage. That makes me happy 
As for the credit mix, right now the only cards I honestly use are the Discover IT for the rotating categories and the Citi Costco card for restaurants and gas.
So...
Restaurants: Citi Costco (3%)
Gas: Citi Costco (4%)
Groceries: Don't have specific card, have been eyeballing Amex for 6% Grocery?
High % Anywhere: Best is Alliant Platinum Rewards at 2.0%. Was declined for the Visa Signature 2.5% because I couldn't hit $10,000 SL.