Question. How to best raise my FICO?

[Anonymous]

 I currently have about 23 accounts, some with my wife. 19 are closed and 4 are open. Would I be better off opening all or
some of those closed accounts to improve my credit score, providing of course there is no annual fee? Also, should I now make sure all future cards are in my name only
(and her cards in hers)? Should I attempt to change any cards already open to individual accounts, or is that all water under the bridge? Does everyone here pay to get their FICO scores? TIA 

[Anonymous]

What is your current score?

Are all the accounts in good standing?  Any lates? Charge-offs?

[RobertEG]

Assuming the best case of all the closed accounts having no unpaid debt, they still count in your average age of accounts calculation, and will continue to do so until around 10 years after the date they were closed, so from that category of scoring, it would probably have no impact.

Reopening the accounts would reestablish their credit limits as part of your % util calculation, so there would be some potential benefit in that category.

The key issue, in my opinion, is what the creditor would do to "reopen" the accounts.  If they maintain the date opened of the closed account, then it would not add an account with zero age.  However, many creditors will agree to establish a new account with a totally separate number, and not transfer any of the account information from the old to the new account.  So your AAoA might suffer.  And it is probable that they would not reopen without doing a pull of your currrent CR, so you would be hit with a new inquiry regardless of the outcome of their final decision.

It depends.....

[Booner72]

There is another thread here w/ great info on whether to have credit together w/ your partner or have your own.  The concensus is clear that having separate credit is important.  I'll go find the name of that thread and then come back and edit.

(If anyone can PM me or tell me how to make those blue letters that allow people to link directly to what you are talking about that would be great...like writing It can be found here).

It's under the topic:  GETTING MARRIED THIS MONTH

[MarineVietVet]

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@Booner72 wrote:

There is another thread here w/ great info on whether to have credit together w/ your partner or have your own.  The concensus is clear that having separate credit is important.  I'll go find the name of that thread and then come back and edit.

(If anyone can PM me or tell me how to make those blue letters that allow people to link directly to what you are talking about that would be great...like writing It can be found here).

It's under the topic:  GETTING MARRIED THIS MONTH

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With thanks to mod moose for posting this earlier:

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When you are posting a message you should see the tool bar.

To do the hyper-link, highlight the text you want to make a hyer-link and then click on the little link Icon.

A pop-up box will appear with the text in the Link Text box.

You copy and past the URL you want into the Link URL box.

The Target drop down defaults to "Open in this window/frame" but you can use the drop down to choose "Open in a New Window".    Then hit insert.

[Booner72]

NICE.  THANKS MV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!