Is it time to prune and garden?

[jdxprs1]

Here's my current profile.

Mortgage
3 auto loans
Credit union dom 1750 limit 18% 14 years old no af
Merrick bank $550 17% no af. Doubles to $1100 soon.
Credit one $700 16% $39 af
Cerulean MasterCard $750 $10 per month af.
PayPal extras mc $5,000 27% no af
Amex ed $1,000 no af. Currently 0%
Amex bce $1,000 no af. Currently 0%
Walmart store card. $3,200 no af.
Pnc cash builder $5,000 no af. 22%
Nfcu sig cash $24,000 11.4%


I don't carry balances so interest rates aren't a big deal. Would use nfcu if I did need to carry a balance. I'd love to add discover, either Amex or citi Hilton, and citi double cash but I've had no luck getting them. Current fico 8's are TU 676, eq 692, ex 706.

Where would you go from here?

[medicgrrl]

To the garden? Just kidding...you say you want to add Amex but you've got 2?

[Anonymous]

Kill these two with fire:

• Credit one $700 16% $39 af
• Cerulean MasterCard $750 $10 per month af.

These are both below sub-prime cards.  Just call, close them out, watch for a few months to make sure they don't report any new balances or fees and burn the cards with hellfire.

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Now, what's your total and individual utilization like?  If your utilization is high on any one card or many cards, getting that way down can help boost your scores and get you approved for better cards you want!

[jdxprs1]

I want a Hilton card. Don't care if it's citi or Amex. And I know the citi appears to be ending.

[jdxprs1]

Current utilization is like 1%. A small balance that slips by statement cut date is all I ever carry.

[Anonymous]

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@jdxprs1 wrote:
Current utilization is like 1%. A small balance that slips by statement cut date is all I ever carry.

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That is perfect!  FICO is maximized by allow a small balance (greater than $0, less than 9% of limit) reporting on one card so you're perfect there.

You also have an installment loan open and reporting, so that's good.

I'd say prune down some cards and age a bit more.  What's your current AAOA this month?  Are you close to the next full year AAOA?

[jdxprs1]

Aaoa took a big hit in last 6 months. Went from 8 or 9 years down to 2.8-3.2 depending on report.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that's pretty young but thanksfully not under 12 months!  I went from 11 years AAoA with only bad accounts (lol) to 5.7 years AAoA when one account that was missing (good because it was all baddies) re-reported as all positive (goodwill letters) to to 3 years with a new account to 12 months all in the last 120 days, haha.

Age until you're at 3 years across the board, and then re-calculate what ONE new account will do to your AAoA and wait on applying until a new account doesn't bring you down below 3 years across the board.

[jdxprs1]

How big a deal is aaoa?

[Anonymous]

According to FICO's many patents (if you want to read them all!), AAoA is one of the biggest factors in how you're placed in a scorecard.  Derogatories versus no derogatories is THE biggest factor of course, but assuming an otherwise clean profile, AAoA is the big deal.

After 5 years and 8 months (I believe, I don't have it written down), you are in the best AAoA scorecard at that point.  If you are under that, you are in a less positive score card and your FICO score won't be able to go above a given ceiling.

So the lower your AAoA, the lower your maximum score likely can be, even if everything else is perfect.

FICO also considers oldest account and newest account age, but AAoA is the generalizer to allow people with high FICOs to keep high FICOs as long as their overall average age isn't really low.

If I wanted to add a new account but it would lower my AAoA into the next lower year, I would just wait it out until my math told me I won't drop into a lower AAoA scorecard.