YOUR CREDIT CARD OUTLET

Trying to re-establish credit after bankruptcy in 2000?

Jan 2008 I started with a $200 secure card. Having done well with that, I took an offer for a second card through Credit One, which I want to cancel due to their high fees, and within the same month, also got an unsecured for $300, and another for $750. I see what this has done to my credit score, but what I want to know is what should I do now? Close any? Or just pay and wait it out until my rating goes up again? It did drop from 640 down to 598, no late payments, not even minimum payments. The whole reason for me doing this was to get a credit score in heading towards financing a house soon (six months to one year)

Well … in all honesty the damage is done now (that is … your score temporarily drops by 5 – 15 points with each new account you open) so it doesn’t benefit you to drop the cards now … in fact … it will HURT your score to close accounts because your credit score will show that you have a smaller amount of total credit available. The best thing you can do is keep your balances on all the cards incredibly low … zero is best … but if not zero … no more than 30% filled on each card. That is … on a $300 limit card, have no more than $100 on it.

So …. at this point .. .you’re better waiting for a bit for your scores to go back up. With a score of less than 600 getting a loan on a house should be possible … but … your interest rate is almost certainly going to be higher than the prevailing rates. So … don’t buy more house than you can afford … you don’t ever want to be in the situation where you can’t make a house payment and the house goes into foreclosure. After a few years of responsible behavior your score will go up quite a bit … and you may be able to refinance the house at a better rate. Good Luck.

How To Eliminate Credit Card Debt – Step by Step Tutorials