Am I Closing in on 700?

[Anonymous]

So I have been agressively paying down my cards over the past several months, and got my score all the way up to 682 before it went back down to 659 because of new auto loan in July. Here are the current rpeorted balances with my 659 score:

3130/3100 Citi

4700/7600 Kay

0/1000 Slate

3053/7000 Freedom

6500/11500 Harborstone (closed by me 4 yrs ago)

0/3500 Syncrony

3100/10000 BOA

AAoA is 5 yrs

One 30 day late march 2013

Heres new balances up to date:

1500/3100 Citi

4500/7600 Kay

0/1000 Slate

2700/7000 Freedom

6300/11500 Harborstone

0/3500 Sync

4200/10000 BOA

Do you think I am finally closing in on 700 club with these lower utilizations? Or maybe the auto loan has to get paid down a bit??

[DollyLama]

IMO, I think you will still be within range of current scores. Utilization and number of cards total carrying balances. It's great you paid down Citi, but you charged almost as much on the BOA. Need to sock drawer most of the cards and continue to pay down. 

Of course there could be factors that were hindering you that may help that are unknown, number of inquiries dropping over last month, did several cards age over a year if was under 12 months old, was your file dirty, ie collections or lates that were PFDs or aged off?

Also the Harborstone you closed 4 years ago, was 11.5K the THEN credit line, and now 0 credit available with the 6.5k balance? If so, your scores will be hindered as long as this one account will be in excess of 100% utilization. 

[Anonymous]

OP, have you done anything to try and get that lone late payment removed?  If not, I strongly suggest doing so.  While focusing on utilization is a great thing, the "payment history" sector of the FICO pie is actually bigger and in your case I would think much easier to perfect than utilization.  Since 30 day late payments are of the smallest severity, your chances of having your creditor remove it are pretty strong if you hammer them with some GW letters, especially if you have otherwise lengthy (positive) payment history with them.

[Anonymous]

I agree with BBS -- working on the late payment at the same time that you pay ff your debt is a great idea.

One more thought.  Your initial post seems to frame the issue of paying off CC debt solely in terms of credit scores.  In other words, it's as though getting a better score is the only reason you have for doing it.  There's a bigger reason which is managing your finances.  You are paying a lot of interest and presumably saving nothing.  That's a double bad thing.  You need to get ALL of your CC debt paid off so that you can begin socking away money in savings.

The best way to do that (in my opinion) is to lock all these cards away where you cannot see them (even better is to have someone else hide them for you).  And then use a debit card for all purchases during the time it takes you to pay off your debt.  Then develop a plan for how you will pay your cards in full each month and at the same time save a big chunk of your paycheck (toward a raing day fund, or a retirement fund, or a fund for saving for a down payment on a car or house, etc.).

To get back to your score, once you have your debt paid off and (we hope) get the late removed, your scores will skyrocket.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

To get back to your score, once you have your debt paid off and (we hope) get the late removed, your scores will skyrocket.

---

I agree with this.  With an AAoA of 5 years, if the OP was to perfect utilization (1%) and get his lone late payment removed, thus resulting in clean payment history, he could change the thread title to read "800" rather than "700" because that's more realistically where his scores would fall.

[Anonymous]

---

Heres new balances up to date:

1500/3100 Citi 48% UTL - Need to bring this down to 20% or 10% if possible

4500/7600 Kay 59% UTL - Need to bring this down to 20% or 10% if possible

0/1000 Slate Good 

2700/7000 Freedom  38% UTL - Need to bring this down to 20% or 10% if possible

6300/11500 Harborstone 54% UTL - Need to bring this down to 20% or 10% if possible

0/3500 Sync Good 

4200/10000 BOA  42% UTL - Need to bring this down to 20% or 10% if possible

Do you think I am finally closing in on 700 club with these lower utilizations? Your UTL still high BUT better than before.  An easy option would be to try and get a CLI on each of those to bring the URL down.

[Anonymous]

Requesting CLIs is not a smart move when aggregate utilization is above 29% or the card you are requesting the CLI on is above 29%. Some argue that being below 9% is ideal, where others feel the 10%-25% range or so ends up being their "sweet spot" for CLIs. Asking for CLIs with utilization in the 30+ range will likely result in denials or on the event of an approval an unfavorable one like $500, thus preventing you from getting a stronger CLI for X amount of time.