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Goal Score Advice

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Goal Score Advice

Hey gang,

 

I am a longtime lurker and have benefitted tremendously from all of the advice here, specifically in helping my wife rebuild her credit. That being said, I haven't really done much work on mine, mostly because mine has always been pretty solid. The more I work at hers, the more interested I am in also improving mine. What advice do you guys have for my credit profile?

 

TU: 769, Eq: 756, Ex: 731

 

I have 1 auto loan with roughly 25k outstanding, but no mortgages currently (two in the past, closed with no lates, everything in good standing). I make roughly 100k.

 

I have no negative anything on my CR, never a late on any account. Total credit line of $99,300, listed individually below. What is my best course of action? Shoot for CLI on smaller CL? Increase number of accounts? Reduce number of accounts? Garden?

 

Chase Slate: $18,500

Barclay Arrival: $14,000

Barclay Arrival+: $10,000

Amex Blue Sky: $12,900

Citi Preferred: $12,500

Citi Dividend World: $4,500

Sears Card: $3,000

Cap1 Quicksilver: $4,500

Discover: $4,000

Lowe's: $5,400

TD Bank Retail Card (Ashley Furniture): $10,000

 

The Chase Slate is my primary card right now because I did some BT to it, taking advantage of their 0%/no fee offer. I'd like to get to a point where the Arrival+ is my main card, due to rewards. The Slate card is just over 50% utilization, so I know that's a problem. I use the Amex at about 7% every month and pay. The TDBank account is just under 30% utilization. 

 

Suggestions?

 

Message 1 of 10
9 REPLIES 9
jamie123
Valued Contributor

Re: Goal Score Advice

Well...You have a pretty nice credit portfolio already.

 

I know you gave us quite a bit of information already but there is still some important information missing. I feel that your scores should be higher than they are right now. Some reasons they could be lower:

 

Are a lot of your credit cards less than 2 years old? How old are they?

 

How many of the credit cards report a balance each month?

 

What was the starting balance on your auto loan? How old is that loan?

 

How many inquires do you have on your reports?

 

 


Starting Score: EQ 653 6/21/12
Current Score: EQ 817 3/10/20 - EX 820 3/13/20 - TU 825 3/03/20
Message 2 of 10
tufa4311
Established Contributor

Re: Goal Score Advice


@Anonymous wrote:

The Chase Slate is my primary card right now because I did some BT to it, taking advantage of their 0%/no fee offer. I'd like to get to a point where the Arrival+ is my main card, due to rewards. The Slate card is just over 50% utilization, so I know that's a problem. I use the Amex at about 7% every month and pay. The TDBank account is just under 30% utilization. 

 Suggestions?

 


Well, just take a look at what goes into your FICO score and determine if there is anything in that mix you can improve:

1. Payment History (nope, you have no lates)

2. Amounts Owed (yup)

3. Lenght of Credit History (nope, only time can do this and no opening of new accounts)

4. New Credit (nope, just don't open any new credit or have any hard inquiries)

5. Credit Mix (Installment loans, mortgage, credit cards, etc - many have seen their score drop after fully paying off an installment loans becuase their credit mix has lessened but I don't think you want to take out a loan just for a score increase)

 

Looks to me like #2 wins - to optimize your score you should only have one card reporting and it should be less than 10%. You have two cards reporting and one is way over at 50% the other at 30% - both need to come down).

 

But then, you already knew that...

 

796 TU FICO 08 (08/2018)
758 TU FICO 08 (01/12/2016)
753 TU FICO 08 (11/21/2015)
740: EQ Score Power (Beacon 5.0) FICO 04 (01/23/2015)
755 TU FICO 08 (01/21/2015)
652 TU Lender Pull (06/10/2014)
665 TU FICO 08 (05/21/2014)
Goal: 800+
Message 3 of 10
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Goal Score Advice

I would work on getting some cli's with the creditor's that offer sp's.  You have a few there.  Maybe Amex card?  My long term goal right now is getting past the 2 yrs mark on my new inquiries and then raising some of my limits.  Then hopefully, my fico will go past 800.  I assuming that is what you want to do?  Or do you want more total credit?  

Message 4 of 10
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Goal Score Advice

Slate, both Barclaycards, and TD card are <2 years. Amex is right around 2 year mark. All others are older. 

 

Three, sometimes four cards report a balance.

 

Starting balance on auto loan about 27,500, have had it only since Dec 14.

 

I have 7 hard inquiries to go along with a ton of soft pulls.

Message 5 of 10
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Goal Score Advice


@Anonymous wrote:

I would work on getting some cli's with the creditor's that offer sp's.  You have a few there.  Maybe Amex card?  My long term goal right now is getting past the 2 yrs mark on my new inquiries and then raising some of my limits.  Then hopefully, my fico will go past 800.  I assuming that is what you want to do?  Or do you want more total credit?  


Like you, I'd like to get past 800. I can't find any firm answer on who only SP for CLI, beyond Cap1. Can you identify any others in my wallet I could CLI with only SP?

Message 6 of 10
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Goal Score Advice


@tufa4311 wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

The Chase Slate is my primary card right now because I did some BT to it, taking advantage of their 0%/no fee offer. I'd like to get to a point where the Arrival+ is my main card, due to rewards. The Slate card is just over 50% utilization, so I know that's a problem. I use the Amex at about 7% every month and pay. The TDBank account is just under 30% utilization. 

 Suggestions?

 


Well, just take a look at what goes into your FICO score and determine if there is anything in that mix you can improve:

1. Payment History (nope, you have no lates)

2. Amounts Owed (yup)

3. Lenght of Credit History (nope, only time can do this and no opening of new accounts)

4. New Credit (nope, just don't open any new credit or have any hard inquiries)

5. Credit Mix (Installment loans, mortgage, credit cards, etc - many have seen their score drop after fully paying off an installment loans becuase their credit mix has lessened but I don't think you want to take out a loan just for a score increase)

 

Looks to me like #2 wins - to optimize your score you should only have one card reporting and it should be less than 10%. You have two cards reporting and one is way over at 50% the other at 30% - both need to come down).

 

But then, you already knew that...

 


Thank you! Reinforcement helps. I will work on paying down balances.

Message 7 of 10
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Goal Score Advice

Amex, Citi, & Discover.  Actually there was a great Disover gravy train going on for awhile.  People were getting c;i's every 16/17 days.  It's gone now. My sl was 5.5k & I got it up to 13.2K.

Message 8 of 10
jamie123
Valued Contributor

Re: Goal Score Advice

The two of you that are chasing 800s, this is what you need to do:

 

1. Stop applying for anymore new credit. Your scores are getting whacked if you have any new credit on your report that is less than 2 years old. Not only that but it lowers your AAoA. (Average Age of Accounts)

 

2. Quit chasing CLIs for a while, especially ones that want a hard pull. You need to limit the number of inquiries on each report to just 1 or 2.

 

3. The auto loan starting balance to current balance ratio is too high. It is nicking your scores a bit. If you have the money, pay down the balance so that you have 70% to 80% remaining balance of the starting balance. Or you could just pay it off normally and your scores will rise as it gets paid down.

 

Really, the only thing that is holding your scores down are TIME and UTILIZATION. Get the UTI down to less than 10% on one card and in 1 year's time you will be hitting the 800s as long as you quit apping for new credit.


Starting Score: EQ 653 6/21/12
Current Score: EQ 817 3/10/20 - EX 820 3/13/20 - TU 825 3/03/20
Message 9 of 10
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Goal Score Advice

Update: got the Citi CLIs from 12,500 -> 14,100 and 4,500 -> 5,700. Tried the 3X CLI on Amex and did online income verification before getting the 7 day message. Using advice here, went back and redid request for 25,000 and automatically approved! Interestingly got instant denial from Discover and 7 day message from Cap1. Regardless, definitely some wins here! Will pay down TD account to sub-10% and will chip away at Slate card.
Message 10 of 10
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