Quote: I have 3 credit cards, all around $1000 limits. This credit thing is killing me.
You don't have enough available credit. Get those credit cards to increase your limit - but don't use it. If you've got a good payment history, they should do it.
Had the same problem here. I had one major card and never saw a need to have more than $1500 available, so I declined their offers to raise the credit limit. I suffered for it when it was time for a mortgage and my FICO score wasn't high enough to get the good rates.
