All of the other places (TrueCredit, CreditKarma, FreeCreditReport, etc) provide you with a score that may or may not even resemble that a lender will see, and has been known to be off by up to 100 points in either direction.

Those scores are referred to on credit forums as “FAKOS”,

Credit, when used correctly, grows cash and assets much quicker than what can be done with income alone. To get credit, it helps to have a credit score.

The greatest impact that you can have on your credit will result from continual on-time payments and an unwavering reduction of your debt. Conservative living can produce a great deal of liquidity that can go toward your debt in a short amount of time.

You may have to put the student loan on hold for now. Some schools offer more assistance than others, so you might try to increase the academic market that you’re willing to consider. It might even be better for you to actually pay your way through school. The ROI in education isn’t all that great these days. You might try to enroll in a cheap 1 or 2 year program, get a better job, and then increase your ability to pay for even higher education later down the road.

I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but if you have faith and live righteously, I’m sure you’ll be fine.

For anyone who plans on owning a home and doesn’t have the cash to pay the principal in full, a good credit score is a necessary evil. It’s not all bad, though. Contrary to Wizard Prang’s assessment that Dave Ramsey believes that debt is needed in order to have a good credit score, going into debt isn’t required to positively impact the credit score. Showing credit card utilization and a history of payments is sufficient to elevate the credit score. And that can be done without ever paying interest. The only requirement is that the balance has to be paid in full each month.

The less of your avaliable credit that is used, the higher your score.

Ex. If your discover had a 10,000 limit and you had 1,000 balance or so. that is +9,000.

then it is cancelled. your new balance/limit is -1,000 !!

thats why your score goes down, most times you can call your bank to re-open

I imagine that creditors use credit limits to adjust their risk. Naturally, they give lower limits to those who they’ve identified as risky credit recipients. They may choose to account for the risk by raising the APR instead. So, my guess is that the easiest way to find high limit cards for high-risk people is to find cards with high rates. As long as you don’t carry balances, the rates can’t hurt you. Seemingly, many people don’t have that type of discipline.

And, yes, creditors will recommend that you wait at least 6 months from the inception of the account to apply for increases to your credit limit. That gives them enough time to re-evaluate your credit worthiness. However, it’s important to understand that they don’t do it automatically. You have to ‘inquire’ about it, and that hard inquiry drops your credit score just as applying for a new credit card would. So be sure that you can afford to take the hit by accounting for the # of hard inquiries on your credit report.

Raising it any further will not, AFAIK, make any difference. In your shoes I would not worry about it.

I am no expert on credit scores, but in your situation I would advise you to concentrate on getting current with all payments, clearing up bad debts, paying bills on time, and building up savings. That will make you less reliant on debt and put you in a stronger position. I believe that opening extra accounts will not help as long if you are not current on payments.

According to Dave Ramsey, the way to get a good credit score is to get into debt and stay there, and I am not sure that is the way to go.

Oh, and if you are expecting a big tax refund in 2010, you are paying too much tax – overpaying the IRS makes for a lousy savings plan; reduce your withholding.

I hope that this helps…