Credit Score Woes

I should probably stop checking my credit score obsessively, but I have been, and I'm really frustrated!

When I checked in early September, I had a score of 632; in October, 636; and today... 622! Since September, I've paid off my Mastercard (around $8000), paid down $1000 on the Visa, and opened one new card (Capital One, which houses the $999 balance transfer from the Mastercard). Other than that, as far as I know, everything has remained the same. So why is my credit score not improving??

Maybe I'm just being impatient. The bulk of the Mastercard wasn't paid off until mid to late October, and I know it takes about 30 days for changes to impact the score. So maybe I'll be in for a nice surprise come the end of the month?

I'm going to take a deep breath, and put this out of my mind until December 1st. Then if my score is still going down, I'll take things from there.

6 comments:

Miss M said...

Ooh, that's painful. Where are you getting your score from? I've only gotten mine as part of taking out loans, car and mortgage. Those include the 4 reasons your score wasn't higher, mine were usually too high a balance to limit ratio or too much debt. Did you get a list with the score? The new account might have done it. Did you close any accounts, apply for any others? You definitely want to work on that score so you can get that home you want!

Sunflowers said...

I got it from CreditKarma (it's free, and gives me my TransUnion score only).

I did apply for one other account before being approved for Capital One a month ago, so maybe that's a contributing factor? :\

Anonymous said...

Just found your blog and really like it! The design is great, and I'm looking forward to browsing through your archives! :)

Sunflowers said...

@gg: welcome! glad you found my blog :)

Miss M said...

The additional inquiry and new card could knock it a few points, did you close the account you paid off? I know they often say keep old accounts open even if you aren't going to use them. It takes awhile to turn around a credit score, keep doing what your doing for now.

Sunflowers said...

@miss m: No, the account that I paid off I kept open... It's the oldest account I have, so it's never getting closed.

I'm hoping it's the inquiries plus opening the new account plus the fact that the money I've paid off hasn't impacted the score yet... so maybe it'll rise to 660 or so by December?

Copyright © 2008 - The Debt Chronicles - is proudly powered by Blogger
Smashing Magazine - Design Disease - Blog and Web - Dilectio Blogger Template