Need advice helping raising my Fico score (574)

Question

Hi guys, Long time lurker, first time poster. Long story short, I had a chapter 7 bankruptcy discharged September 2014. At that time, my Fico score rose 9 points to 584. Since that time, my Fico score dropped to 544, and has seen a very mild increase up to today’s date at 574. I don’t have any of my own credit cards, although I am an authorized user on all of my fiancés Credit Cards. Between her and I we have two installment (auto) loans. She has the following Credit Cards, with the credit limits in the first column, with our typical balances in the next column (first 5 cards are paid off in full each month by due date, the last 4 cards have running balances on them that are targeted to be paid off at various points in the next year) : American Express Blue Cash Everday:     $2000    $200       10.0%   Target Visa Credit Card:                            $6500    $600       9.2%     Wal-Mart Mastercard:                                $6000    $400       6.7%     Toys R Us Mastercard:                              $8000    $200       2.5%     Kohl's Credit Card:                                     $1500    $100       6.7%       Kay Jewelers Credit Card:                          $7650    $700       9.2%      will be paid off on 10/1/15Best Buy Credit Card:                                 $3000    $2900    96.7%    will be paid off on 2/10/16Citi Diamond Preferred Card:                      $8800    $7800    88.6%    will be paid off on 6/3/15Capital One Card:                                       $7000    $3300    48.5%    will be paid off on 9/30/16  My question is: Do I need to add credit cards for just me, instead of being an authorized user on her cards? All of the cards I am added as an authorized user for are added to my credit report, and I thought with having multiple balances reporting each month that my score would change, but it really hasn’t at all. Does my bankruptcy really keep my score weighed down so much? Today I applied for a Capital One Quicksilver1 Unsecured card and was approved with a $1000 limit and I will start using that monthly. Should I apply for additional cards just under my name? I know that keeping most if not all cards below a 10% utilization rate is key, and we are trying to get there and hopefully won’t have any outstanding balances in one years time. However, I am curious as to what tips and advice I can get at helping raise my score. I figured that my score would be higher than it currently is, but clearly I am not doing the right things in raising it. Our plan is to purchase a new home next fall (she currently owns our current home just under her name), but by the time we are married next summer, it would be nice to have both of our incomes considered for a new house loan, and I certainly won’t help out that situation with my garbage credit rating. Thanks guys.

Answer 1

I was approved for $1000 limits on both the Quicksliver One card and the Platinum. Those both should be sent to me in the next week or two. We will be starting to move the charges we currently use on the Target credit card (groceries), the Toys R Us card (dinner, activites, etc.) and the Wal-Mart Card (fuel) over to the AmEx card in order to take advantage of the cash back so there won’t be much of a balance (if any at all) on any of those 3 cards. I figured instead of paying some of our utility type bills such as cell phone, cable, internet, gas, electric, etc. I would put those on my Quicksilver One card and pay them off each month, just as I would normally do with the cash in our checking account. I don’t know what I will use the Platinum card for, but I’ll find a use for them. As for the first reply I received, yes, some of the balances are high on a few cards. Those aren’t charges of us just racking up debt for fun. Life happened (child custody case with my ex, vet bills, etc.). As I already stated, we have a payment schedule set up to pay off those high balances within the next year. Normally, we don’t carry that high of debt on our cards. And best of all, we don’t miss payments. EDIT: Is there no effect to my credit report (or is the effect not as substantial?) if I am an authorized user as opposed to the sole card owner?