Help Raising Score Fastest

[Anonymous]

Hey first time posting! I am trying to raise Fico Score 8 from 675 and have found paying down cards seems to be fastest way. I currently have $3600 saved up and was wondering how I should distribute the funds to get the highest bump from that amount paid down. 

Currently have $23500 / $35000 or 67% Total Utilization

I have a balance on 7 different cards mostly higher utilization per card while on the 0% interest promos and a quite a few older cards with $0 balances. 

Here are the Balance/Credit Limit on cards with balances

Amex $500/$1000 - 50% Utilization

Care Credit $250/$4800 - 5% Utilization

Chase $5950/$6100 - 98% Utilization

Citi $3100/$3200 - 97% Utilization

Credit Union $4900/$5000 - 98% Utilization

Discover $6450/$6800 - 95% Utilization

Kohls $1390/$3000 - 46% Utilization

Wanted to know if I should payoff Amex and Citi in full or distribute the $3600 evenly to take multiple cards down below the higher utiliztion levels for those individual cards? Just want to know thoughts on which will actually give the highest score bump between 2 options.

Need to purchase a new vehicle soon trying to get the best score possible before going to the dealer.

Thanks for all the input!

[Kforce]

I would attack all the maxed out cards.

See if any of the creditors balance chase, and go from there.

With 4 maxed out cards and others at 50%, you look like you are in trouble.

It make no difference if they are on 0 promo, it is all just math and you don't look good by the numbers.

Start paying them down !

[Anonymous]

I agree that you should attack the highest balances first. You might consider using FICO thresholds which reward you a little when you drop down in individual utilization and aggregate. 

so I might pay down the highest balances to 48.9% then each of the others to 28.9% then to 8.9%. But as I see your balances, you might be about to achieve that with only one card that you use all your $3600. So another option might be to pay off all the low balances first, then use the rest to get you under 88.9% or 68.9% for each card. You might aim for getting your aggregate utilization to lower than 48.9 or 28.9%. 

the utilization thresholds are:

8.9%, 28.9%, 48.9%, 68.9%, and 88.9%. You are rewarded when your utilization goes below those numbers. 

you can find more about these thresholds in the forums, and I'm only suggesting to use them given the amount of money you are using to bring the balances down, and the high utilization you have now

[Anonymous]

Utilization on your report shows as an aggregate figure, however, be aware that any ONE CC with terrible util (even though your aggregate figure may have single-digit utilization) will tank your score by anywhere from 20-50 points. 

So I would pay off one card, at a time, completely, so long as I was not falling behind on at least the minimums to others. 

When I was much younger, I found myself not able to get much above high 600's due to utilization, new accounts, and INQ, despite having a perfect payment history and my oldest account being 7 years. 

- FICO doesn't care about oldest account if it's not influencing your AAoA very much 

- FICO hates util on ANY ONE LINE, just as much as across all lines 

- FICO will ding you (slightly) for having even 10% util vs. a perfect 0% util 

People like to complain about the scoring models changing, but the BEHAVIORS that get you into the top tier have always been the same. 

[Mr_Mojo_Risin]

Whatever you can do to get the balances down on Chase, Citi and Discover would be beneficial. 

Those are ripe for balance chasing.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey first time posting! I am trying to raise Fico Score 8 from 675 and have found paying down cards seems to be fastest way. I currently have $3600 saved up and was wondering how I should distribute the funds to get the highest bump from that amount paid down. 

Currently have $23500 / $35000 or 67% Total Utilization

I have a balance on 7 different cards mostly higher utilization per card while on the 0% interest promos and a quite a few older cards with $0 balances. 

Here are the Balance/Credit Limit on cards with balances

Amex $500/$1000 - 50% Utilization

Care Credit $250/$4800 - 5% Utilization

Chase $5950/$6100 - 98% Utilization

Citi $3100/$3200 - 97% Utilization

Credit Union $4900/$5000 - 98% Utilization

Discover $6450/$6800 - 95% Utilization

Kohls $1390/$3000 - 46% Utilization

Wanted to know if I should payoff Amex and Citi in full or distribute the $3600 evenly to take multiple cards down below the higher utiliztion levels for those individual cards? Just want to know thoughts on which will actually give the highest score bump between 2 options.

Need to purchase a new vehicle soon trying to get the best score possible before going to the dealer.

Thanks for all the input!

---

No question that you need to get rid of the 90+% balances, then get rid of your 80+% balances, then get rid of your 70+% balances and so on until you have everything down to 28% or less, at which point you have the luxury of zeroing out accounts.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I agree that you should attack the highest balances first. You might consider using FICO thresholds which reward you a little when you drop down in individual utilization and aggregate. 

so I might pay down the highest balances to 48.9% then each of the others to 28.9% then to 8.9%. But as I see your balances, you might be about to achieve that with only one card that you use all your $3600. So another option might be to pay off all the low balances first, then use the rest to get you under 88.9% or 68.9% for each card. You might aim for getting your aggregate utilization to lower than 48.9 or 28.9%. 

the utilization thresholds are:

8.9%, 28.9%, 48.9%, 68.9%, and 88.9%. You are rewarded when your utilization goes below those numbers. 

you can find more about these thresholds in the forums, and I'm only suggesting to use them given the amount of money you are using to bring the balances down, and the high utilization you have now

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That's awesome info. Explains my being puzzled in my previous post. There's a threshold below even 10%. 

How did that information come about? Was it a leak? 

[chrisw1968uk]

Is a consolidation loan out of the question? it will also give you another type of credit for your file - which can help your fico's also - good luck

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous I agree with what has been said definitely start with those high balances. Unfortunately and sorry to say this but during these time especially balancing chasing is occurring more frequently. The issue with balance chasing is it can also cause a chain. You score is still high enough to possibly avoid this but I would not be surprised if once you pay down those high util cards if they decrease your limit on those cards as you pay them. It is unfortunate but I would say definitely target the high balances first as a way to possibly stop this from happening. Balance chasing often depends on how long you've carried those balances if it was 1 month that is fine but if it's for 6 months..... a year.....etc that looks a lot more risky to lenders. Goodluck! 

[Anonymous]

Before you spend a whole day filling out credit apps, please consider some personal loan lenders with whom I've been approved (at great rates, less than half of the credit cards which I was paying off!) 

- Lending Club (no luck with Lending Tree) up to 2 active loans. 

- Upgrade (they give you a card, but each "swipe" has its own 36 month fixed term, I did it in one big transaction to keep things simple) 

^ These guys ^ seem to be really indifferent to INQ and LOL/24. I had low util when I applied, but YMMV. They're not COMPLETE sticklers, though. There are some I'd reserve as a last resort or secondary option, at least: 

- Avant (generally too-high interest rates, similar to revolvers or higher, for all but exceptional credit, and with exceptional credit, why would you need them?) 

- OneMain Financial (rates similar to Avant, shady about offering lower rates then telling you it's a secured loan at the last minute) 

Lastly, the next are credit card companies, but I have been fortunate to get either 0% intro offers, 0% balance transfer offers or EXTREMELY low BT offers soon after being approved:

- PenFed (BT checks for 12 mos @ 0%, 18 mos @ 1.99%) 

- Fidelity Rewards (Elan Financial - 0% intro and 0% BT for 12 mos) 

- Chase (unexpected! In their online portal offers some weird personal loan-like product and terms that utilize your revolving credit limit to initiate a more favorable interest structure) 

Remember, the personal loans (Lending Club, Upgrade, Avant, OneMain) all show up under "Other" and let you unload your revolving UTIL for a cleaner slate. Upgrade is funny because in Lending Club's own free credit monitoring product, it shows up as revolving, but not to worry, it is "other" under all 3 main credit bureaus and has not caused any issue with UTIL in my FICO scoring.