<prompt> Human: Three years ago I had 17K in CC debt 2-3 cards at 12.99-17.99, a small auto loan 2-3K at 5.9 and only 2K at 2.5 left in student loans. I had and still do a decent, long term, steady job that paid 59Kyr with great benefits and a 401K. Had a few personal bad events set me back that caused me to have to utilize my CCs even more and picked up some bad spending habits for a year during the crisis. When all was said and done, I was another 20K in CC debt on top of what I started with. So, I stand at 39K in CC debt total. My FICO score had always been around 720-730 even with my high balances as Ive never had a late payment in my life and have paid off numerous other debts cars, etc. I erroneously thought paying off my car loan and student loan recently would only help my FICO score but Ive watched it drop from 715 in December to 663 this April paid off car and school loan at the beginning of the year. I didnt realize not having any installment loans on your report isnt a good thing. Which really sucks but the worst part is that I recently got a notice in the mail from a still open credit card account that I had thought was closed years ago with a balance of 13K saying if I didnt use it by 43017 it would automatically close. Now my credit usage according to MINT has been 57 34K out of 59K. I guess they dont count the 5K CC account I have thats closed which I thought was mostly old department store cards I never used and one or two cards not being used. So, I freaked out, thinking of what this would do to my usage percent to lose this 13K out of it and asked them to kindly send me a new card to use once, keep the account open, and promptly cut up. Just got a notice today saying they were going to close the account anyways due to my FICO score not having any installment loans on it grrr and carrying high amounts of debt and my credit score being only 633. So, now once this goes through on my report, my credit usage will be 84. Pretty sure my FICO score is going to go down to 200. FML. I just got the notice yesterday. Is it worth it to try and get a small installment loan to try and diversify my credit still? I was actually thinking about getting a loan through Lending Tree a year ago and now Im kicking myself that I didnt when my credit was so much better. Obviously I will be paying every single penny into my credit cards now as I am scared to death of having a score this low. What If I ever want to buy a house or even rent a new place for cripes sake?! Is it even worth it to try to and pay all this off if my credit is already going to be this messed up anyways? What other things besides just paying my life and soul into these current cards can I be doing to help my credit score? And how low is my score going to actually go? Assistant: To buy some time and save on some interest, try applying for a 0 APR card like Chase Slate and transfer some of that 39k over. Live extremely frugally for the next 2 years and your debt will be much more manageable. I would not think about purchasing a house just yet.Human: I have 5K in a closed account that is locked at 5.9 and 3.5K on a 0 apr intro card til nov 2018 currently. Im scared to apply for anything else really right now because Im pretty sure Ill get denied. Buying a house is really the last thing on my mind to be honest but I guess Im just scared that I wont be able to get my credit back up once its gone so bad so quick.  <response>: Dont worry about your credit; focus on the 39k. Create a budget and categorize your spend by needs, wants and extraneous spend. Find how much your needs add up to. Allot yourself a tiny portion of your wants and cut all extraneous spend. Best of luck! 