Opening New Credit

[gbwhite1]

I wrecked my credit when I was much younger. I've spent the last 15 -20 years trying to fix all the mistakes I've made. That includes paying off all my credit cards every month, I question anything that I see on my credit report that doesn't look right, etc. Recently I had ID Theft and then after what seems like years I was able to put a credit freeze on the big three. I read that I can improve my credit by opening new credit accounts. If you're trying to keep your balances down and manage your credit the right way how can opening new credit accounts improve your credit reports? Can someone please explain this to me? Thank you in advance

Greg 

Mod edit-full name

[Anonymous]

There are times when opening new accounts can help you. There are times when it can hurt at least temporarily. If you have high overall utilization a new account can lower it so long as you don't charge the new card up. It depends on a lot of factors though. We need more info on your credit to say how much and if opening them would help. How high is your utilization? How many accounts do you have? What is your AAoA?

[Anonymous]

---

@gbwhite1 wrote:

I wrecked my credit when I was much younger. I've spent the last 15 -20 years trying to fix all the mistakes I've made. That includes paying off all my credit cards every month, I question anything that I see on my credit report that doesn't look right, etc. Recently I had ID Theft and then after what seems like years I was able to put a credit freeze on the big three. I read that I can improve my credit by opening new credit accounts. If you're trying to keep your balances down and manage your credit the right way how can opening new credit accounts improve your credit reports? Can someone please explain this to me? Thank you in advance

Greg 

---

Greg, for us to answer your questions correctly, what exactly is in your report?  Opening new credits accounts can only go so far as there are several factors that is taking into consideration for one's credit to be stellar.  Break your credit profile down and you will get tons of help.

[NRB525]

A couple of points:

Welcome to the boards, you can get a lot of good information by asking questions with specifics about your situation.

As a result is it not a good idea to put your full name on any post.

There are reading materials throughout the site for "understanding FICO scoring" that are probably a good place to start. Answers here will be an attempt to provide the information, but the edited / curated posts are more complete.

Good luck!