FICO® Credit Score Hits 791

A nice jump for my FICO® credit score this month: up 31 to 791. How did I do it? I made a payment of $2,000 (exactly) on my Citi® credit card some weeks ago. This is cool: I'm just 9 points away from my goal of being in 800+ territory by 2008.

Just as soon as I'm done writing this blog entry, I'm going login to my Citi account and make another large payment -- $3,916.74 to be exact -- a payment that will eliminate my personal credit card debt completely! That's a significant milestone for me since I've had personal credit card debt for as long as I can remember.

A $2,000 payment caused my FICO score to leap from 760 to 791. So what will a $3,916.74 payment do for my FICO score? My guess is that my score will jump to at least 805. If you care to make a guess, please feel free to do so in the comments section below.

Will I be able to refrain from using credit for my personal needs? Yes, I'm quite confident that I will. I have some major purchases to make:

• A new car stereo. It's not a self-indulgent upgrade! My radio went dead a month ago and I haven't been able to fix it. I may be able to spend less than $100 by simply replacing the head unit, but if I have to spend more, I will. I love to drive, and I can't stand driving without a good mix of NPR news and my favorite driving tunes.
  
  
• A washer and dryer. An investment really, since I'm just making the owner of my local laundry center rich by washing my clothes there. Plus, I'll save time by washing my things at home.
  
  
• Some car repairs. I've been hearing a strange and worrisome noise in my car's front end. It's been bothering me for many weeks, and it's time I got it fixed. Suspension work is often expensive, but I'm hoping the repairs won't cost more than $1,000.

But I've been saving up for the above list of expenses, so my personal credit cards won't see any action any time soon. Yup: my personal credit cards are going to experience some serious neglect from now on.

As for the status of my two business credit cards: I'll be paying the balance on my Citi business credit card down to zero later tonight, and I'm also going to make a large payment on my Bank of America business card, a payment large enough to reduce the balance by at least half.

I'm excited about all this debt reduction going on in my life, especially because it means that I'll be shelling out less money each month.

That's it for now.

I usually close with an updated chart of my FICO credit score. Don't worry: the tradition continues. I recently created a new spreadsheet with my FICO data, and from that spreadsheet I created a new chart which I hope is clearer and easier to read. So here it is: my FICO credit score from June, 2005 to the present:

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