[salukigirl]

I used to have pretty good credit. At 19 it was 651 which is pretty good for a teenager. Well since then I have accrued a lot more debt from school etc... and have only been late a couple times over the last 5 years on bills in general. I just checked my credit report and the two big things that weigh me down are the length of my accounts (which I can't really do anything about except wait) and my debt to income ratio.

I finally got fed up with citi bank and closed my credit card and got set up on a payment plan because they were being ridiculous. Chase closed one but said it had nothing to do with credit and that I guess they were just closing millions of accounts due to the economy and I'm never late on that and usually pay more than the minimum.

I had a card specifically for this tire place that I put oil changes and tire rotations etc... on and signed up for paperless statements because it lowered my apr. Well then I guess something went wrong and I just stopped receiving statements and ended up going delinquent because I just wasn't getting a bill and had no clue what was going on! Well I paid that one off as soon as I found out but my credit score is still poor.

Being a college student, I pay my bills on time and TRY to pay extra but sometimes I just can't. I would like to have a higher score and don't know if there are any little things that I could do? Like if I got a credit line increase on one and did a balance transfer to knock everything down to one bill? But then balance transfers have a really high apr don't they?

I have never done a cash advance or balance transfer and am only thinking of this now because I want to think about buying a house in the next few years. It just seems like I get different answers everywhere I go. Like some say paying off your card fully is bad because you need to have a revolving balance. Then others say its good because it lowers your debt to income ratio. But which is right?

When I go salary and start making more I was planning to pay off just about everything except my discover card because they are the only company so far that hasn't screwed me over. But wanted to hear others' opinions on how straight up paying things off in entire balances actually affects your score?

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducatio...yourscore.aspx