Fair Credit question

calibeebee · Sep 21, 2009

So I've accumulated about $4,000 worth of debt since I was 18 (I'm 23 now). I have 2 credit cards, a small school loan, and a small car loan. I've made late payments a few times and what not and I just got a credit score check and it was at 688 which has to be pretty bad but I guess it'sconsidered "fair". I recently just got a 5 thousand dollar bonus from work and had a few questions.

1. If I paid all my debt in full tomorrow how much would my credit score go up immediately.
2. What could I get with a 688 credit score, i.e. how big of loans, how big of credit limits on cards.
3. How long would it take for my credit score to go up after I paid in full.
4. Say I pay off everything in full, is it a good idea to keep the cards that I have or destroy those and get new cards if I ever want to use credit cardsagain.

Thanks for your help nt

deletedelete · Sep 21, 2009

dont destroy them, keep them and restrain... keep the ratio of amount of money you owe/use to the amount of credit AVAILABLE to you as low as possible.

so if you have 5 credit cards with a total credit limit of 10,000 bucks and you only use $100 of that and pay it off completely per month, you will see asignificant increase in your credit score next quarter or so.

arsnalj23 · Sep 21, 2009

Originally Posted by calibeebee

So I've accumulated about $4,000 worth of debt since I was 18 (I'm 23 now). I have 2 credit cards, a small school loan, and a small car loan. I've made late payments a few times and what not and I just got a credit score check and it was at 688 which has to be pretty bad but I guess it's considered "fair". I recently just got a 5 thousand dollar bonus from work and had a few questions.

1. If I paid all my debt in full tomorrow how much would my credit score go up immediately.
2. What could I get with a 688 credit score, i.e. how big of loans, how big of credit limits on cards.
3. How long would it take for my credit score to go up after I paid in full.
4. Say I pay off everything in full, is it a good idea to keep the cards that I have or destroy those and get new cards if I ever want to use credit cards again.

Thanks for your help nt

1. Your score wouldn't go up immediately. It would take a couple of weeks to months before it reflects in your credit score.
2. What you can get with a 688 depends on the lender and what you're trying to get. Lenders look at a few different things besides your credit score, ie.assets, length of credit, income, etc.
3. As mentioned in 1, it would take a couple of weeks to months to show any change, and when it does it won't jump to a number, its a slow progression.
4. If you choose to pay off everything in full (which isn't always a good idea by the way) you SHOULD keep the credit cards open. You can continue to usethem as long as you maintain a small balance. It shows banks that you can hold an account without any problems, and the longer you have it the better it lookson your credit report.

There's more I can add to this but I'm kinda tired so I'm going to sleep now. Feel free to PM me any questions though.
(I'm a Loan officer so I know a little bit more about credit and how it will affect you.)