Moving forward....

[jdetermann1974]

I have a house payment, 2 car loans and 8 credit cards. 

My credit cards are as follows: 

Revvi,Total Visa, Surge, Milestone, Capital One QS, One Main Brightway, First Digital and Credit One. 

All of these cards are not good ones I know. My FICO scores are high 500's and low 600's. When can I try to transition to better cards? What score is needed? My utilization right now is 22% and I am working on paying it down. 6 of my 8 cards have a zero balance.

[pizzadude]

Moved to Rebuilding Your Credit

[NoMoreE46]

I would wait for your scores to mature > 680 before thinking about applying. 

Would you include the CL for each of those cards? 

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@jdetermann1974 wrote:

I have a house payment, 2 car loans and 8 credit cards. 

My credit cards are as follows: 

Revvi,Total Visa, Surge, Milestone, Capital One QS, One Main Brightway, First Digital and Credit One. 

All of these cards are not good ones I know. My FICO scores are high 500's and low 600's. When can I try to transition to better cards? What score is needed? My utilization right now is 22% and I am working on paying it down. 6 of my 8 cards have a zero balance.

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[jdetermann1974]

Revvi - $300

Total - $300

Surge - $300

Cap One QS - $300

Credit One - $300

First Digital - $300

One Main Brightway - $600

Milestone - $700

[NoMoreE46]

Thanks @jdetermann1974.  You probably know that you are caught in low limits limbo.  

Wait at least six months from your last app/inquiry to apply.  

You can get a score boost from AZEO.  Two to three months out,  try AZE0.  (I would select the CapOne.)

Any particular goal card in mind?

[GZG]

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@jdetermann1974 wrote:

I have a house payment, 2 car loans and 8 credit cards. 

My credit cards are as follows: 

Revvi,Total Visa, Surge, Milestone, Capital One QS, One Main Brightway, First Digital and Credit One. 

All of these cards are not good ones I know. My FICO scores are high 500's and low 600's. When can I try to transition to better cards? What score is needed? My utilization right now is 22% and I am working on paying it down. 6 of my 8 cards have a zero balance.

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what negatives do you have on your report, do any have unpaid balances, high 500's, low 600's typically means still outstanding unpaid derogatory balances 

are you in a position to pay them off, how old are they? 

[jdetermann1974]

I have several negatives on my auto loan. I also have 3 credit cards(Target, Lowe's, Discover) that are charged off since 2021. I do not have the ability to pay them off currently. 

Im trying to do a rebuild on my credit. Most of my credit cards were opened Jan/Feb 2024 so I know Im working on the long road

[Snook_on_the_Line]

It's going to be a long road.    

the late payments will have less of an effect over time but the collections and charge off will carry a stiff penalty all the way until they fall off your report 

my best advice is to just make sure you keep making 100% on time payments on the cards you have and let the negative info age off

if you don't add any more negatives by the time the last one falls off your report scores will shoot up to the high 700s

at that point app away for whatever card you want

getting whatever cards you can get along the way while you have serious delinquencies on your reports is not going to help much

you have plenty of accounts allready

by the time that last negative falls off your report you'll be left with a bunch of accounts with nothing but years of positive payment history.     Putting you in the position for whatever card you want. 

I rode it out for three years with five deep subprime cards with toy credit limits while waiting for my negatives to fall off and then was able to pick up three cards in three months with 5 figure limits

[jdetermann1974]

Would you advise to payoff the Lowe's, Target and Discover charge-offs? Or will it not make much difference since they are 3+ years old?

[FicoMike0]

Ditto what @Snook_on_the_Line  said.

Id focus on getting present utilization under control and Never carry a balance going forward! Worry less about fico and more about finance. Low fico isn't hurting you, it's protecting you from getting credit you can't handle.