Credit card and car loan advice

[NewDirections]

I'm going to be buying a car soon. I want to increase my credit score by paying off as much of my credit card debt as possible. I have two cards, one with a limit of $700 that I owe $650 on and one with a limit of $300 that I owe $230 on. My credit score is 723 currently. How much do I need to pay off in order to raise my score? I want to pay off as much as possible, but I also want to have money for a down payment.

I'm going to buy a used car under $10,000. It will be purchased some time in the next month due to issues with my divorcing my stbxh.

[velochic]

Usually, with a credit score above 720, you're not going to get any better rate, so you are above where you need to get the best rate. Rarely do the creditors require more than 720 for their best rates, although, in one case, they required 760 and that was recently for a personal (unsecured) loan my sister wanted to take out. Ours have been in the 800s for years and the few times we've inquired about loans over the years, 720 was the magic number and higher didn't make a bit of difference.

I would definitely not sacrifice a down payment to try to bring your score up a few points since you're already there. JMO

[zebra15]

If you are buying the next month or so there is no guarentee the cc's are going to update the records. CC's usually download 1x a month (at most), downlloads are done automatically.