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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?
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?
@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...
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?
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.
@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?
@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.
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.
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.