Wow! From 400's to 580 is quite a jump. That's great to see. You'll be loving it when you get out of sub-prime and into 700+!
Once all the negatives are removed from your credit report (or at least most of them), work on your debt-to-credit-limit ratio. It's actually as important if not more important than getting the negatives removed.
Try to keep your balances under 30% of your credit limits. The lower the better. For example, if you have $10,000 in available credit, keep your balance lower than $3,000. (I prefer to keep mine at less than 5%.)
One way to lower them is by paying off debt of course. But, another way to lower your ratio is by raising your credit limits. For example, if you have $5,000 in debt of an available $10,000 limit, you are at 50%. If you get the bank to raise your limit to $20,000, you are now at 25% - which is much more favorable.
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