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It's a myth that you need to maintain a balance on your cards to help your score. If you use your cards, that use will show up on your credit reports, but then pay them off in full when you get the statement to avoid paying interest.

Look carefully at the whole picture. If you only have a few open accounts, that could make a difference, even if your total number accounts over the years is high. Do you have any derogatory remarks? That could make a big difference. On the credit report card, you could have one derogatory remark and still have that as a B, but I think one could significantly drop your score. So if some of the higher weighted categories, like on-time payments and derogatory remarks were B's instead of A's, you could still have a low overall score because of how heavily those factors are weighted. It's a very complex system. Keep reading more articles on here to learn more. I've been on this site for months and feel I have a better understanding, but there's still a lot that is somewhat mysterious.

My sarcastic answer is "just pay off in everything you owe at once," which is, of course, the fastest way to pay it down. But that assumes you have the money available to do that, which I know most of us don't have. But it's tough to give a serious answer without knowing more about your situation, how many cards you have and debt amounts and so forth. Nandog is right, paying off highest interest cards is best. Another way to go is to do balance transfers if you have enough cards with high enough limits. You could transfer a high interest balance to a low interest card, which helps.

My understanding is that those remarks are just automatically generated and don't necessarily mean much. Those are the two factors that are the least strong factors on your report. If you only have two cards, one 16 years old and the other 7, then your average for accounts is 11.5. That's good, but not as good as 15 or 20 years. You don't mention if you have other accounts--student loans, car loans, etc.--so maybe the average age of your accounts factors those in too and it's even lower. It seems you still have a good history, but not as good as somebody with 30 or 40 years of history.  The same thing could be true of your balances. It's great that you pay in full each month, but that doesn't show up on your report, so having 3K on your card looks like you might just have a 3K balance you aren't paying down quickly. It's not a big problem since that's still only 10% utilization, but that's not as good as 7% utilization. It seems like the report just generated automated responses that don't really make much difference. You say you've been chasing the 800 mark, but that's pretty tough to reach. Give it another ten or twenty years of history, and maybe you'll get there. In the mean time, it seems that you have very good credit for someone who's only 32, and if your score is in the upper 700s you'll get the best loan rates anyway, so who cares if it isn't above 800?

No.

A fixed rate loan like an auto loan is considered "good" debt, like a mortgage or student loan. Revolving debt, like credit cards, is viewed more negatively. Plus, the interest is probably higher on the credit card debt. Make minimum payments on the auto loan and put any extra money toward the credit card debt.

Like hardeight wrote, you'd be better off just paying that amount on your current card. Or, better yet, look for a balance transfer offer. If you could transfer your balance for fee of 3 - 5% and then have 0% interest for a year or 18 months or however long, that would be the best. Then pay it off as quickly as you can, paying as little interest as possible.

Some apartments don't do any credit check at all.

Yes. This site.

If you have student loans, contact your lenders and try to work something out. In my experience they are willing to work with people. You might be able to set up income based repayment where you would owe less each month, possibly even nothing, or maybe you could go into forbearance for a while, in which case you might still have interest accrue, but you wouldn't be required to pay each month. If you genuinely can't afford to pay your bills each month, contact all your creditors and try to negotiate something. Let them know your situation and figure something out. That will be better than just not paying. Also, you do have some time to try to get going. As nandog wrote, if you have a Master's degree, you might check into teaching as an adjunct at a college. The pay is often pretty poor, and there are no benefits, but it still tends to be better than working minimum wage. But of course there's that option, too, if nothing else works out. In the mean time, try to save as much as you can and to streamline your bills. Don't go out to eat, drive less, do everything you can in the next couple months to make your spending less and put as much away in the bank as possible. I am currently an adjunct at a community college, and I never know until a week before classes start whether my classes will go or get canceled or be taken away and given to a full-time teacher, especially in the summer. So I always try to save enough so I can make it for a few months with no income if, for instance, my summer class gets canceled and I have to make it from May to September without a paycheck. Obviously, I don't know your income and your financial responsibilities, but there are probably some things you can negotiate or work out in the next couple months to lessen your financial burden and prepare. I'm sorry to read about your tough situation. Good luck.

You have one fewer open account now, so you that's one fewer payment counting toward your history each month. It might affect the age of accounts as well. From what I understand, it's fairly common for a score to drop a bit after paying off a loan like that. Also, I've read that lenders don't like to see loans paid off early. They prefer that you take the full term to pay, so they get the full interest return on their investment. Of course, it's still better financially for you to pay off early and avoid paying the extra interest.

Two years.

You want to have some regular activity reported to the credit bureaus so it doesn't look like you are afraid to use your cards or can't afford to use them. But that could be any kind of small purchase. It doesn't have to reach 10% utilization. If it's 1%, fine. Then pay in full each month. As far as which cards to use when, if you never use a card at all, the bank may close it because they see that it's inactive, so it's a good idea to use each card every six months or so just to show some activity, especially with your oldest accounts. But otherwise, just using a card occasionally should be fine.

Yes, a balance transfer is a good idea. Just do it knowing what you're doing, taking into consideration the fees and so forth. If you can transfer a balance and pay 0% for a year and there's a 5% fee to transfer the balance, then essentially, you're paying 5% for that year. That's still better than the 17.9% you're paying right now. Then pay it down as much as you can while you have it at a low interest rate. Then, when the 0% rate is ending, transfer it again. This would work as long as you have enough cards with available limits that you can keep transferring balances. Look around. Some fees are only 3% instead of 5%. Some cards will give you 0% on transfers for 18 months or more. Find the best deal possible, transfer the balance, and then work on paying it off. It can definitely save you money in the long run. Good luck.

You can update your CK report once a day, and it updates with whatever is the latest available information on your TransUnion report. Since lenders report to the credit bureaus once a month but not necessarily on the same days, your score can potentially change on a daily basis.

What do you mean by "perfect credit"? Do you mean you had a score of 850 for 30 years and then it's dropped since you retired? That seems unlikely. Do you mean you have a perfect on time payment history for 30 years? If so, why do you think that necessarily should mean you should have a score higher than you currently have? There are many factors that go into a credit score. The good news is that your score is so good that you'll get the best rates on loans, just like you would if your score were over 800. But if you have no debt (no mortgage or car loans or anything along those lines), then you aren't continuing to build credit through additional positive payment of open accounts, so your score might drop over time. But who cares? The reason to work toward a good credit score is to get the best rates if you need a new loan. You're at that stage, so what difference does it make if your score isn't over 800? If you really want to improve your score, take out a new loan, continue your good payment history, and wait another ten or twenty years. That just might do it. Or be happy with what you've got.

It depends on the mix of what's good and bad in your report. Different factors are weighed differently. If you have A's in relatively unimportant categories (like inquiries) and an F in a really important category (like payment history), then your score would be low.

An inquiry will hit your report and ding it right away. It might be two points. It might be ten points. It depends on the particulars of your report. When I've had inquiries in the past, they've had a two or three point effect. But getting the card itself will have a different effect. It will increase your available credit limit, which should lower your utilization, but it will also lower the average age of accounts. Getting a new card might make your score drop or go up.

Look at a copy of your actual credit report and see what's on there. Maybe you're still on your parents account. Maybe there's inaccurate info on your report. Go to annualcreditreport.com

You seem to be confused. First, this section of the site, "Credit Advice," is for asking questions of others who use the site, not for contacting Credit Karma. Second, Credit Karma is a free site. They don't charge any monthly fee, so you're probably confusing them with some other organization that charges for credit monitoring. Third, if you want to update your credit score here, go to the "My Credit" tab and click the "update" button. You can update every day.

Different companies report differently. Some report to all three bureaus; some report only to one. Depending on what information the bureau has, they calculate your score differently. But a difference of 29 points is not a huge discrepancy. Your close are pretty close to each other. If you have variation of 100 points, then you'd really want to look closely to make sure there weren't errors on your report.

The advantage to keeping old accounts open is that they add toward your average age of accounts. Generally, it's a good idea to keep your oldest accounts open, even if you don't use them as much as your newer accounts. However, that's probably not worth paying fees for. When you close those old accounts, your score might drop a bit, but it'll come back up in time, and in the mean time you won't have those fees to pay.

Request credit limit increases without hard inquiries. If you can raise your credit limit, it will lower your utilization and could bump your score up those few points you're looking for. Or just wait and with continued good history, your score should rise.

Ask your current credit card companies to increase your credit limit.

You already had the two hard inquiries, which affect your score and can't be changed now anyway. Another negative of opening two accounts at once is that your average age of accounts will be low, but if you don't have much credit to start with, that won't make a difference. Use both cards responsibly and pay off your accounts in full each month. You'll build your good payment history faster with two cards.