EXP up 35 points...broke 740 what now?

[Anonymous]

I had a 120 day late payment dropped from my report and my AMEX Experian Fico 8 reflected the change. I'm at 742 now. I have six credit cards with low AAoA, a personal loan and a car loan. I have a $1500 balance on a $6000 limit card (took advantage of a 0% 12 month offer) that hasn't been posted and virtually no other credit card debt. I wonder what my new score will offer me. Should I ask for lower APRs? Take out another personal loan? Apply for another card? I don't need anymore credit at this time but have a big tax bill looming next year due to gambling winnings. I was going to buy a condo but the VA rejected the property. So I will rent for at least another year. My income is $50k tax free. I owe $4500 on the personal loan @12% and $33,000 on the car at 3%. I help my stepmother with loan payments and my mother with living expenses. I'm 56, single and am permanently disabled due to military service.

It's taken me years to re establish excellent credit. I'd like to take advantage of my new status but not blow it which is so easy to do, especially with my gambling and spending history.

Advice is welcome.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
@I had a 120 day late payment dropped from my report and my AMEX Experian Fico 8 reflected the change. I'm at 742 now. I have six credit cards with low AAoA, a personal loan and a car loan. I have a $1500 balance on a $6000 limit card (took advantage of a 0% 12 month offer) that hasn't been posted and virtually no other credit card debt. I wonder what my new score will offer me. Should I ask for lower APRs? Take out another personal loan? Apply for another card? I don't need anymore credit at this time but have a big tax bill looming next year due to gambling winnings. I was going to buy a condo but the VA rejected the property. So I will rent for at least another year. My income is $50k tax free. I owe $4500 on the personal loan @Anonymous% and $33,000 on the car at 3%. I help my stepmother with loan payments and my mother with living expenses. I'm 56, single and am permanently disabled due to military service.

It's taken me years to re establish excellent credit. I'd like to take advantage of my new status but not blow it which is so easy to do, especially with my gambling and spending history.

Advice is welcome.

---

In my opinion the best thing would be to establish a relationship with a credit union, where you can get decent credit offerings down the road when the time comes to pay that tax bill.

[Anonymous]

Set your goal to 760 and keep doing what you are doing.

You state you don't need anymore credit so the earlier advise of paying off what you have and saving for your tax bill is an excellent suggestions. As a reminder, you can make quarterly tax payments to the IRS if you are concerned that you may not have the money when tax season rolls around.

[atarvuzdar]

Congrats on the huge bump! Rate decreases and many credit limit increases are done via soft pull. When this happens the CCCs usually use the last one they have on hand--which would probably be one from before your nice score increase. If you don't anticipate much changing score wise in the next few months it may be worthwhile to hold off on those two types of requests to give your lenders time to pull a new version of your report. Anything using hard pulls is a completely different story, of course.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the responses. I am a member of Navy Federal. I have a 20k Cash Rewards card @14.65%, checking and savings. The card was obtained over two years ago when my score was 652. I was denied the checking line of credit at the time. I'm going to contact HR Block now to see if they can give me advice on next year's bill. They did my 2016 taxes. I had some gambling winnings and a government paid student loan to claim. This year I have almost $40,000 in winnings but have almost that amount in losses to claim. My income is VA and Social Security disability which is untaxed. I have $5000 in the bank at this time.

[gdale6]

Hi there OP,

I have combined both of your threads in this one here in UFS. Please refrain from cross posting in the future as its not inline with our TOS and it can lead to confusion by the members. I thank you for your understanding on this.

[Anonymous]

Save money and pay your loans off! if you dont need CCs then why apply only because your score went up.

Garden and pay off debt.

[Anonymous]

OP, do you have any other negative items on your credit report outside of the 120 day late that just dropped off?  I'm thinking you must, as a final major baddie falling off usually yields more like 50-75 points.  Perhaps you still have at least one minor delinquency present?

[Anonymous]

Sorry about the double post, gdale. Got a little excited.

I still have a 30 and 60 day late from 2013 on my report which is why my score didn't go higher.

Thanks for all the good advice. Still happy with a 740 score considering what I have done in the past. At my age I still have a tendency to repeat mistakes. Glad I posted.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I still have a 30 and 60 day late from 2013 on my report which is why my score didn't go higher.

---

That makes sense.  Have you made any attempts to get the 30 & 60 removed via GW?  If you were to be successful, chances are you'd see high 700's across the board instantly.  Depending on the creditor, it may not be too tough to get them removed as they are of the weakest severity.