I am helping a friend try to up her scores a little better, I have told her about the boards and I do hope she stops by. While looking over her limits, balances etc. I noticed that her total credit lines come to about 20K, her income is only 29K. I realize this could be a potential problem where loans are concerned, but even though her total lines don't seem outrageously high, it just has me concerned. Not trying to get too personal of course, but for the average what are you lines and incomes, percentage wise? My lines are around 15K, income 30K so around 50% of my income.
ALTHOUGH PERSONAL INCOME and HOUSEHOLD INCOME do matter...they can and do get exceeded by credit lines... There are people who should not have a credit limit above $500...even though they make $100,000+ There are other people that make $50,000, and have NO trouble with $100,000 to $150,000 in credit lines.
I have $150,000 in lines with an income of less than $50,000 on average over the last 5 years. As a matter of fact, close to half of my income is from interest derived from my loans to CreditWorks. www.creditsense.com
I have credit limits slightly higher than my income - that has never been brought up, but number of cards has been an issue. breeze
For some reason, number is important to some credit card companies... If I had 4 cards @ $25,000 each... It would be MUCH better, than 20 cards @ 5,000 each. DUHHHHHHHH
IT IS SAD..BUT THE FOLLOWING IS BECOMING TRUE...NOT JUST RUMOR... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If I had 4 cards @ $25,000 each... It would be MUCH better, than 20 cards @ 5,000 each. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I dont really think it matters how MUCH credit you have. As George mentioned, your score starts to get affected negatively if you have many credit lines. So if you had one card with a $20K limit it would be much better than 5 cards with $4K limits as the wise George mentioned. Your income is not even used for scoring with the credit bureaus. However, a company may use your income for their own internal score card when assessing your credit. So, with that in mine I say the more available credit the better. However, I think having too much debt is a bad thing. Common sense needs to be used when you have a low or below average income.......let's say $20-$30K and you have credit lines of $50K and you are at $80% utilization. You are just asking for trouble. To be on the safe side I try my best to keep my balances in a range that I can pay them off with $2-3 billing cycles. You NEVER know what could happen to you! Those are just MY thoughts. Does anyone wanna chat tonight?
Dang, I am nearly the opposite. I have $31K in credit lines with an annual income of $125K. Did you hear that mom? I got some catching up to do?
Lizard, I have 9 credit cards. Providian Visa, my first CC, then DMB MC, then AmEx green, then Cap one visa. I've had those for 2 yrs now, regular increases and decent rates. Then Cap One sent me an offer for a MC "up to $1,000" - turned out to be the $200 toy card. I tried to cancel it right away, got hoodwinked by a CSR into keeping it, but when they wouldn't increase my limit at all, I finally got it closed (acutally retention combined it with my Visa) but the MC is still reported as open on 2 CR's. Then in the meantime, PVN offered me a MC - I took that, but they only gave me 1 little increase on it - they keep giving me increases and lowered my rate on the Visa. I got the gas cards from Associates, and then they wanted to give me a visa, so I took it. By then CRA's started releasing score and I had found this board, and I realized I qualified for prime accounts - I didn't know what AmEx meant when I got it, LOL. So, I applied for Citibank AA card and got $4,000 limit in March. With all the talk about Citi and upgrades, I tried to upgrade, was told to apply, so I did. They turned me down saying I had too many cards and too many inquiries. The amount of debt was not an issue, limits were not an issue, but # of cards and inquiries was. Every single one of these CCC's pulled Equifax!! Some of them twice. Oh the ninth one is Orchard, which, when I saw the terms, I cancelled immediately, but it still gets counted apparently. But, honestly, I don't want to cancel any cards - if you have options, no one can back you into a corner. I think that is important. If I have credit available somehwere else, then they can't stick it to me whenever they feel like it. Maybe that is why having many cards is an issue, LOL. Obviously, I have managed my credit well for close to 3 years now. That's not any huge track record, but it is supposed to be enough. I have a little hidden credit also - it's not in use, but it's there breeze
Unsecured Bank Credit Cards, buying a computer and applying for cards was the way I built the credit up. Most of the Issuers have bumped up the credit lines generously.
Breeze You're in the same boat I am in right now. To bump your score, stop applying for 6 mos. Nothing. Make sure your closed accts show closed. Dispute Cap1 (the tiny new credit line). Hope the whole line comes off or at least is closed. Reason: a new acct is a pretty big score hit for 6 mos. If you kept it open for less than 6 and combined and closed it, the acct will never age. Eg: you'll always take a "new acct" hit in score. Dispute it. It'd be better off than showing as it is now. Also, you'll take a neg hit for a closed acct that's "new". but it's less than the "open" hit. We all thought the more the better. If you closed down to 3-4 cards and waited 6 mos, you'd be only prime (and your Citi would increase your limits dramatically). Why suck up old subprime cards? Keep your oldest 2 for aging, Amex, Citi new card... you get the drift
Re: Breeze MArie, I am very interested in the new account hit. Example I got the AA silver card in Oct, then Gold in Nov then combined silver with gold in MArch, so are you saying since that account never hit the 6 month mark, I will always be penalized???
Re: Breeze 53K in credit, very little income for the past two years. I'm getting approved for most cards, but they are giving me small credit lines.
