Improving my credit score

October 15, 2007
I have decided to try to improve my credit score from the mid 700s to closer to 800 or even over 800. The factors below are the main influences on my score:
Payment History (35%)
Amounts I Owe (30%)
Length of My Credit History (15%)
Types of Credit Used (10%)
Your New Credit (10%)
#1 I have always paid my bills on time so there is no way that I can improve on #1. I need to continue to always pay on time.
#2 I can however improve the amouonts I owe just by paying down my debt. Specifically, all of my credit card debt except for my Amex debt which I pay off every month, is on one card and I am currently using 60% of that card’s credit limit. I do have other cards with a total of $35,000 of credit limit that zero is owed on. I think that the 60% use is having more of a negative effect than the positive effect from owing zero on the other two cards. After next March I will owe nothing on my credit cards so that will help that factor.
#3 My credit goes back more than 15 years so that is a good thing. Also, there is nothing I can specifically do to help improve that.
#4 I have a mixture of installment and revolving debt which is good. My car, student loan and mortgage are installment debts and my credit cards are revolving so that is good also.
#5 I have applied for new credit within the last 12 months 3 times. Once to refinance my mortgage, once to get a zero balance credit card offer, and once by accident when I clicked on the “Bill Me Later” option on a website. UGH! I will not be applying for any more credit because this is the one areas that I can most improve upon.
Anyway, I plan to check my score every 3 months for the next year. I will check it again before the end of 2007 to see if there has been any improvement.