Newbie Questions

[Anonymous]

I apologize in advance for anyone courageous enough to read my novel. =)

Relatively new to the forum and have been spending a significant amount of time reading posts & replies. This forum has supercharged my desire to get my score up! Biggest problem I have is that I am extremely impatient. =(  After reading for days I took the plunge & applied for several cards.

Delta Amex -  approved 1k SL

Barclays Apple - approved 2k SL

J Crew - approved $250 SL

Kohl’s - approved $300 SL

I was denied for Amex green, Amazon store card & Chase Amazon =/

I have 2 baddies I am working on (1 paid the other send PFD this week) 

I am at 30% UTL, 6 years AAoA & 10 HP with TU, 11 HP with EX & 7 HP with EQ after this recent app spree. 

Is it time to jump in the garden, if so, how long? 

Any suggestions on how to get all my scores up to 680 by year end would be greatly appreciated. I’m assuming my scores will take a hit with 5 new accounts (Discover opened 3/18) but I’m not sure how bad of a hit. Any ideas?? 

2018 Goal is to have scores out of Fair status & into Good status so I can feel like I’m making progress. 

 Here are the cards I have

Capital One QS - $2700 CL - opened 12/15 

First Premier - $625 CL - opened 3/16

Comenity VS - $1400 CL - opened 4/16

United Chase - 5k CL opened 6/17

Synchrony Mattress Firm CL - $2500 opened 8/17

First Premier - $700 CL opened 11/17

Comenity Pier 1 - $500 CL opened 11/17

Discover It - $1200 CL opened 3/18

I also have auto loan, student loan & personal loan all in good standing 

I want to close First Premier but not sure is I should. 

Any input would be greatly appreciated!!! 

[HeavenOhio]

Definitely close the First Premier accounts. You'll still have five major cards and eight cards total.

And definitely whittle down your utilization. It's not in bad shape, but 28.9% is considered responsible borrowing and is generally recognized as the second best scoring tier for overall utilization. 8.9% is better.

Search the forum for AZEO. That method optimizes the revolving portion of your score. To do that, you report a small balance on one card with the rest reporting zero. Not everyone needs to do this, but if you have a goal score in mind, it may be useful.

Once your utilization is down, you can request soft-pull credit limit increases (CLIs) from AMEX, Discover, and Capital One. With AMEX, you can request three times your current limit 61 days after opening your account. If you're denied, you'll have to wait 91 days before you can try again. If you're approved, you can request again after 181 days.

With Discover, I'd wait until three statements have cut. But if you're denied, it's not a big deal because there's no waiting period before you can request again.

With Capital One, there's no waiting period after a denial. After an approval, you'll need to wait six months before requesting again. If you request an increase and aren't satisfied with what you're being offered, you can decline it and request again without resetting the clock.

I think your assessment that you need to garden at this point is spot on. With all the new cards, I'd give it a year. Besides the accounts aging, all of your current inquiries will become unscorable, and some will likely drop off your report entirely.

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much for your advice. I was worried that closing the First Premier cards would hurt, but I’m assuming the long term affects outweigh the short term of closing them.

I’ve read a lot on AZEO & expect to begin that practice by the end of the summer. I’m hoping that by using that method & having 5 of my inquiries falling off around that time I will get the boost in my numbers that I am looking for. 

Off to to the garden I go  

[Shooting-For-800]

I would not apply for any new cards unless prequalified for Discover or Cap One QS or Venture.

I would close any cards that you do not like.

Use your best cards and pay them off.

Time heals all.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for advice. Will be closing First Premier first thing tomorrow. The other 5 I will use as stepping stones to eventually upgrade to better cards with that bank when possible. Guess I can enjoy the next few months off while I wait for time to pass 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you very much for your advice. I was worried that closing the First Premier cards would hurt, but I’m assuming the long term affects outweigh the short term of closing them.

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There will be no penalty of any kind, even short term, in closing the FP cards.  You will get an immediate advantage in not paying the annual and monthly fees.  Naturally you will want to pay the FP cards to zero before closing them.

I would recommend staying in the garden for at least two years.  Even after the FP closures you will (as HeavenOhio points out) still have 8 cards total, including five major cards.  There is no scoring advantage to having more than three cards (though conceivably there might be an advantage of up to five for the mortgage models).  Thus, if a person was solely interested in improving his score, in your shoes the right decision would be to never open another credit card again.

Short term goals (next 2-6 months) should be:

      * Pay all cards to zero

      * After that always pay the statement balance in full each month (letting at least one card report a positive balance).

      * Develop a budget and financial plan that will enable you to start saving a big chunk of your takehome pay each month.  This will enable you to slowly build up a big emergency fund (cash savings account) which in turn will prevent you from ever being in a situation where you need to run up credit cards and pay the huge interest they charge.

      * Work with folks here on beginning a campaign to get all derogs removed from your reports.

Medium to long term goals:

      * Work with people here on improving your credit limits.  There are ways to do that that do not involve hard pulls, but you'll need guidance.  I wouldn't begin working on that untill your CC utilization is lower and your scores are higher.  The only important limits to raise are the cards you really like. 

     NOTE: raising CLs is only good for convenience.  It does not in itself raise your scores at all.  A person with three cards each of which has a $500 limit can have an 850 score.

     * Consider the possibility of closing all store cards.  The insurance industry uses a non-FICO model which penalizes you for having store cards.  If you get a huge value from having a store card, then keep it open, but the default should be to consider closing any particular store card.  Also consider closing any card that charges an annual fee.  Again, if you get a huge value from keeping it open, then keep it open; but at least explore whether you could save money by closing it.  (There are often non annual fee card alternatives that work as well, given that you don't have to pay the fee.)

     NOTE: if closing a number of additional cards would induce you to want to open other cards in their place, then don't close them.  At all costs you should stay in the garden for at least a solid 13 months.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the confirmation on closing FP. Calling them first thing tomorrow. Plan on upgrading my car fall of 2019 so I’m trying to put myself in the best position possible by then. 

Question on on the derogs that I can’t figure out. Is the fall off date 7 years from initial delinquency? I think my AAoA is helped by some old student loans but they also have late payments before being sold. Trying to understand when they will go away

[IncrsCreditScore]

Agree with CreditGuyInDixie.  Close all store cards along with the First Premiere cards.  When your card balances are down to zero, pay each card off each month.  And get those baddies off and stay in the garden for several months.

[IncrsCreditScore]

It is my understanding that cards closed in a derogatory status will fall off credit reports in 7 years 6 months after first delinquentcy, not after 7 years.

[thornback]

7.5 years is the max it can remain on your report per FCRA. Bureaus' general practice is to remove after 7 though. So you cannot, with standing, complain about an account not being removed "on time" until 7.5 years has passed.

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@IncrsCreditScore wrote:

It is my understanding that cards closed in a derogatory status will fall off credit reports in 7 years 6 months after first delinquentcy, not after 7 years.

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