"I Pay My Credit Cards Every Month, But My Scores Aren't Going Up?"

Last year I gave advice to someone that wanted to be prepared to buy a home this fall. She called me last week, letting me know that she monitors her scores and they are not moving up at all.

She told me that she took my advice and got three store cards and pays on them each month. When I ran the credit, her mid score was a 591. Here was the problem, the three store cards were nearly all maxed out, the only thing that was really being paid down was her car payment.

I reminded her that getting the cards was one thing, but paying off the balances every month would have increased the scores pretty quickly, somehow she forgot that part.

She told me that she would pay off the balances over the weekend and I would rerun the credit report at the end of next month, giving the accounts enough time to update the information.

Hopefully, she remembers the rest of the instructions this time.

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