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@CreditInspired wrote:
Jg, I hope you accept my response as humble suggestions with no judgment intended. So IMHO, you should take the following steps:
@1. Stop charging on all your cards immediately -- don't even charge a cup of coffee. ICE -- throw all your cards in the freezer (thanks to @austinguy for coining the term) if you have to. Start using your debit card.
2. Now since wife is working, start paying 3-5 times the minimum payments.
3. Yes, do not apply for any more credit. You would be digging yourself into a deeper hole. And with high UT and low AAOA, you probably would be declined any additional credit.
4. Call NFCU and ask about an APR reduction especially if any of your products with them are a year old.
5. AA was taken on your Walmart card and you're being balance chased. This is not a good sign because there's a strong possibility that other CCC may take notice and do the same.
6. You are already at 63% on your NFCU CLOC. Transferring balances to that card (maxing it out) will have an even more negative effect on your score.
7. It is bad for your scores to have balances reporting on every single CC. Again, since wife is now working, IMO, I think you should work on paying off Chase, Walmart, DCU, and Amazon as soon as possible.
8. Start getting in the habit of PIF. Since Mattress Firm is 24-mo 0% interest, continue paying minimum payment on that and focus on getting NFCU balances down to at least 29% UT. Also, if Mattress Firm is deferred interest, you want to make sure that is paid off before 0% interest expires.
I hope these suggestions will guide you to slow down and focus on making your credit profile healthy especially since your end goal is to purchase a house.
GL to you.
+1
Agreed
@CreditInspired wrote:
Jg, I hope you accept my response as humble suggestions with no judgment intended. So IMHO, you should take the following steps:
@1. Stop charging on all your cards immediately -- don't even charge a cup of coffee. ICE -- throw all your cards in the freezer (thanks to @austinguy for coining the term) if you have to. Start using your debit card.
2. Now since wife is working, start paying 3-5 times the minimum payments.
3. Yes, do not apply for any more credit. You would be digging yourself into a deeper hole. And with high UT and low AAOA, you probably would be declined any additional credit.
4. Call NFCU and ask about an APR reduction especially if any of your products with them are a year old.
5. AA was taken on your Walmart card and you're being balance chased. This is not a good sign because there's a strong possibility that other CCC may take notice and do the same.
6. You are already at 63% on your NFCU CLOC. Transferring balances to that card (maxing it out) will have an even more negative effect on your score.
7. It is bad for your scores to have balances reporting on every single CC. Again, since wife is now working, IMO, I think you should work on paying off Chase, Walmart, DCU, and Amazon as soon as possible.
8. Start getting in the habit of PIF. Since Mattress Firm is 24-mo 0% interest, continue paying minimum payment on that and focus on getting NFCU balances down to at least 29% UT. Also, if Mattress Firm is deferred interest, you want to make sure that is paid off before 0% interest expires.
I hope these suggestions will guide you to slow down and focus on making your credit profile healthy especially since your end goal is to purchase a house.
GL to you.
I agree with SouthJ. Wonderful advice.
Note the extreme importance of #2. ("start paying 3-5 times the minimum payments.") It affects many of the other bulleted recommendations. For example, since you are at risk of being balance chased (#5) you need to establish with every card that you are aggressively paying down debt. Paying close to the minimum payment implies far greater risk to the creditor.
#2 trumps all the other recoemmendations, except #8. Even on this 0% card, you should begin creating a record paying more than the MP, since your other creditors may inspect your reports to see if you pay only the MP on some cards (a well known flag for risk). With the 0% card I'd only pay slightly more than the minimum, e.g. $2 say.
#2 also trumps #7. Paying off small balance cards (#7) is a great thing to do, and I highly recommend it, but not if it means paying close to the MP on other cards. People who are at risk of Adverse Action need to regard that as the thing to protect themselves from at all costs, and #2 will be a key weapon in that fight.
PS. I just saw our OP's followup post. Since the extra amount of cash may be limited, he may decide to implement #2 conservatively. For example, maybe all he can afford with the new income stream is to pay double the MP (plus $1). That's fine -- he just needs to do his best. Any cash beyond that should be used for cards where he knows he is being balance chased or which have high individual utilization.
Once all cards are at < 49% he can shift the extra paydown funds into attacking small balance cards and high interest cards. But he should never stop with recommendation #2.
OP, I'm a bit unclear in your original post when you say 25-35 negatives or so on each bureau but then only reference one 30 day late payment? Do you mean you are getting one 30 day late payment removed, but you still have 25-35 more (depending on bureau) present? How old are your negative items and of what severity to they span?
@jg1983 wrote:
No negatives other than the 30 day late. Those are inquiries.
Oh inquiries aren't negatives, they're just inquiries.
If your only negative is one 30 day late you're not in such bad shape overall.
Main thing for you is to start paying more accounts down to zero, and keeping them there.
Some people recommend tackling highest interest balances first.
I favor the 'snowball' method: pay the smallest balances down to zero, then move on to next smallest balance. Each time you knock the balance down to zero you have the money freed up from that account to apply to the next one.
Agreed with SJ above. If your only negative is a single 30 day late that's going to be removed soon you are in a great place. When that only negative comes off, you'll probably see a 50-75 point jump in your scores which of course is huge. You're already maxed out on inquiries, so adding any more won't hurt your score until at least half of the ones you have now come off.