Mortgage and Insurance

So I decided to pull my credit today for the first time in about a year, I thought it would have gone up. Since I last pulled it, I purchased a house, purchased a car, had paid 99% of my bills on time (i forgot I bought somethign on my Kohl’s card and missed a month, darnit), and in general thought I was doing well.

 

The results:

 

EQ – 4/09: 639, 5/10: 608

TU – 4/09: 629, 5/10: 599

  

Grr. So, I’m starting project credit score improvement, and I have a couple of questions.

 

Background:

 

Collections: 2

Ratio: 71%

Accounts with late payments: 7

Total late payments: 12

Revolving accounts – 16k

Installment  – 24k  (student loans, cars)

mortgage – 224k

# of accounts – 28

accounts with balances – 11

accounts open in past year – 1

recent inquiries – 11

Other: I have 3 accounts that have 0 balance that show “payment after charge off/collection” from 4 years ago

 

The only open credit cards I have currently are Kohl’s (CL $100/bal 0) and Best Buy (CL $600/bal 450 – will pay off in about 3 months), and a Chase on which I am an authorized user (CL $2100/bal 1800). 

  

Next Steps:

  

GW letters for late payments (I hope to get lucky, the large majority of my late payments are in a 6-month period in 2005-2006 when my husband was out of work, so hopefully my sob story will work on some of them). From what I’ve seen, very few have any luck with GW’s from Chase (who manages my Kohl’s) account, and that’s where FOUR of my lates are showing up. But I’m going to try.

GW letters for collections (I’m keeping my fingers crossed, I have 2, these are seriously minor and silly, all less than $200 – one I was trying to dispute when they sent it to collections and one is a medical bill)

Keep paying bills on time (Which I do very well in general – although you wouldn’t know it from my score!)

 

Should I?

 

1. Remove myself from a closed CC my husband has on which I am an authorized user? It is a closed account and the balance is 7k.

2. Apply for new credit (I don’t think so, I don’t think I’m likely to get it but I obviously need some major help with my ratio)

3. Do anything else I haven’t thought of?

 

Thanks for any help. I’m tired of living in the bad-credit-morass.