"Even though I have all those outstanding potential balances, I don't have many outstanding balances."

Hearing that from my financial consultant would be troubling to me. To the point where I wouldn't want to hear any other financial advice from the same person.

Also, "...your score gets dinged each time it's checked for new credit. Applying for too much credit at once has creditors worried that you're in a financial bind and getting ready to rely on credit you might not pay back. New accounts opened also impact your score by about 10% for much of the same reason. "Taking on new credit has shown to indicate a higher level of risk," Paperno said. "People who go into default tend to have added new credit more recent than those who haven't..."

While, this is true, it's only half of the picture. When a new credit line becomes available to you, it also decreases your UR, which offsets some of the "dings" mentioned in the article. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I feel that this FICO thing is like some sort of vodoo formula. It seems capricious and arbitrary as in it works completely differently from one provider to another. I've seen my scores plummeted by more than 30 points after some of my CC binges, yet I've seen them gaining almost as many after others.