heres my situation...i have 19 open accounts, 3 are w. sallie mae, 1 is us dept of education, chase, walmart,?

Question

hooters, aspire, homedepot, target, fingerhut, care credit and cap. one. included on which i am an authorized user discover, cap one (a different one), jcpenny. i used cap 1 and discover for balance transfers so i can cancel hooters, aspire, orchard. i also transferred my person cap 1 card but intend to keep it.

if i cancel walmart, fingerhut, target, and dell will that severly lower my credit? i know its not good to close account because then they wont report, but its also not good to have too many open accounts. my total personal debt is 5500.00 in credit debt. the student loans are about 8000.00 but im not worried about those at this moment since they are not in repayment.
I also have one judgement against me from an apartment i had in 2002 and didnt know the boyfriend didnt pay rent on. i intend to pay them off in 2 weeks.
did i make any sense here? lol...what do you suggest? what will hurt and what will help?
my available credit is about 20,000.00 and...

my three scores are 589, 608, and 610 at this moment

i just had alot of cards with low limits and high interest so I transferred 5 balances to the low interest cards. i want to be able to get approved for a house or an apartment for myself and my daughter within the next 1-3 years so am trying to fix my credit now and pay it off

Answer 1

Forget your credit limits. Having 19 open accounts is hurting your score more than anything short of late payments will. Those that say never to close an account misunderstand half a sentence from the FICO explanation of credit scores. Last time I said that on Yahoo Answers, someone listed a number of books as sources for the statement. MY source is MyFICO.com. That is the official site of Fair-Isaac, the company that developed the FICO formula and the ONLY on that actually KNOWS the formula. ALL other sources must depend on them for information.

Answer 2

Keep your accounts open, even if they have no balance. You want every dollar of available credit to show since you have a high debt to available ratio it seems.
Keep all Visa/MC type cards open and close store cards first if you close anything.
Once you pay the judgement off, you should do better. Also, consider paying the student loan off, as that is a long term debt, even if the rates are low.
Good luck!