topic Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012 in Credit Cards

Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

tinuviel — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:19:07 GMT

Greetings, fellow credit gardeners! The summer is rapidly coming to a close and we're ready to start a new month. And so, I hereby convene the September meeting of the myFICO Garden Club.

For those who are new to the concept of gardening, it involves refraining from applying for new credit or seeking CLIs that require hard pulls. Soft pulls CLIs, however, are not only acceptable, but are encouraged. The idea is to allow one's current TLs to grow and mature, waiting for inqs to age or fall off, and possibly waiting for "baddies" to be removed or age off. During this time, one tends to one's current accounts and watches their AAoA grow and the new credit ding fade.

So, if you're at the stage of your credit journey where you're ready to enter the garden, please come and join us. You may pick up your complimentary watering can and garden gloves by the front door -- you can even choose your favorite color! We're proud to offer a well appointed clubhouse. There is a snack table set up. We have a full featured gass grill, so burgers, hot dogs, and kebobs are available for your dining pleasure! We will be bidding farewell to our summer menu, so this labor day weekend will be our last offering of fresh corn on the cob; where has the summer gone? There's iced tea, lemonade and sodas, and if you like, a variety of ice cold beers. For dessert offerings, we'll transition from summer to fall with a selection of either apple pie or marble pumpkin cheesecake. We have an appetizer selection consisting of jalapeno corn fritters, bruschetta with tomato and basil, and as always, an assortment of mini-quiches. Please feel free to bring and add any items that you'd like. And, in the corner diagonally across from the front door, there is a fully stocked bar. If needed, there are some anti-itch medications stocked in our supply cabinet near the door -- Lanacaine, Benedryl, etc. If you need to place your reports in the deep freeze, we also have a freezer, located next to the bar, so go ahead and throw your reports in!

Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Make a gardening plan and commit to sticking with it! Are you planning to wait six months before applying for additional credit? A year? Until the last of your baddies drop off? Whatever your goal, we're here to support you. If you feel the "app-itch" coming on, let us know and we'll try to help you through it.

Now, if you happen to leave the garden prematurely, that’s your decision and we respect that. You are always welcome to come back, pick up your gardening tools and start over again. But please, celebrate any approvals on another thread. While we are happy with members’ success stories, we really do want to keep this thread’s focus and tone to be consistent with gardening efforts. You are certainly welcome to celebrate soft CLIs on this thread, though, as they do not involve inqs or apps for new credit.

GARDEN CLUB CHALLENGE AND RECOGNITIONS:

Garden Club Challenge: Pick a firm date for staying in the garden and post it in your siggy!

Garden Club recognition levels: To qualify, your reports must contain:

No new tradelines of any type on one's accounts (this includes backdated Amex accounts, as they are STILL new "seedlings").
No HPs for anything that would allow for the possibility of a new tradeline being issued or increasing the CL of an existing tradeline.

You will be able to add the following to your siggy if you have abided by the above for the following time periods...

New!!! Less than 1 month - seedling

1 month - bronze spade

3 months - silver spade

6 months - gold spade

12 months - platinum spade

24 months or more - diamond spade

Please note: recognition levels reset once you add an account or incur a HP. We recognize that there may be very good reasons for "leaving the garden," and we respect whatever thoughtful decisions members make. As stated previously, members are always welcome to come back, grab their gloves and start gardening once more.

I'd like to express my appreciation to DaveSignal for coming up with some spade graphics that you can embed in your siggy in order to display your status. Thanks, DS -- great job!!!

Seedling:

Bronze:

SIlver:

line to put at top of sig:

Gold:

line to put at top of sig:

Platinum:

line to put at top of sig:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/vVRv5.png" border="0" alt="" title="" width="120" height="80" align="right" />

Diamond:

line to put at top of sig:

So, how's everyone's garden doing this month? Please feel free to mix and mingle, and share your gardening goals as well as your progress on the journey.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

CruzImperial — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 02:51:07 GMT

New Bronze Spade counting down the days here :)

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

webhopper — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:05:13 GMT

Hehe im still here, bronze spade :)

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

CreditChampion — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:06:51 GMT

Still in the garden hopefully I can finish up the hippa process in a few weeks.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

jamesdwi — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:07:38 GMT

Here in the garden 20 days Ap free, feeling the itch, AMEX starwood prefered 30k points join offer and Barclays NFL $200 bonis promotions are both running now, must wait till January for best backdating and Baddies and INQ to fall off...fighting the good fight.

10 more days till i get my bronse spade.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

tinuviel — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:10:28 GMT

As I reported last month, I've brought back a bunch of little seedlings to add to my garden. I'm looking forward to sitting back and letting them age -- and letting my AAoA recover! I'm cringing to see what happens when all four appear on my reports, but, it is what it is. I'm taking comfort in the fact that I intend to hang onto these cards for a long time, so whatever new credit hit I take for this will be short lived.

So, at this point my garden looks like this:

Cap1 Visa Platinum - 6400 CL

Cap1 NHCR MC - 750 CL

Dillard's Amex - 4200 CL

JC Penney - 2300 CL

Kay Jewelers - 5100 CL

Amex Green - NPSL

Discover - 2000 CL

BankAmericard UCF Alum Association Visa Signature - 5000 CL

Citi Diamond Preferred - 6800 CL

Wells Fargo Rewards Visa - 7000 CL

I thought about pruning the Cap1 MC, but I decided to keep it and put my DD on as an AU. This will be her first experience with a CC, she'll get almost two years of clean history with it right off the bat, and it should help her to get a card in her own name once she's gained experience with this one.

I'm thrilled with the view in my garden right now! I've gone from dead and/or dying brambles a couple of years ago to a healthy, thriving collection of cards with good limits and that suit my needs. So happy!!! Now I'm sitting tight and working on earning my spades! :)

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

MsLadyRover — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:11:05 GMT

Hello September! Day 8 for me. Working towards a replacement Bronze spade.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

Revelate — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:17:22 GMT

Ah, back to the garden for the last two weeks! With unfixed plans sadly.

Random ladybugs swarmed my garden and confused the FICO gods (strange or mid-month reporting dates by two entirely different lenders out of my three CC's) and wound up dropping down to a 636 on 8/31 with 46% utilization, though a part of that is possibly the inquiry I know I took on EQ replacing a 19.35% auto loan sprout with a 5.99% auto loan seedling, feeling no pain garden wise at the moment :)

The unfixed part comes from debating when to apply for an Amex Zync: I've gone back and forth between October and December for various things, and I'm thinking I'll hedge my bets by seeing when BOFA unsecures my card and just make the Zync application right after since I might eat an inquiry as it unsecures, not certain on that one.

The overarching concern though is mortgage qualification in 2013, and if it weren't for backdating I'm struggling to justify the rest of my planned application spree now. Yeah there's a bunch of cards I'd like to have, but 2 vs 1% rewards on my now minimalist existence (have to bank cash for the horrific downpayment in S. Cali) is laughably moot, so I'm thinking I'm going to be just fine with the BOFA 1-2-3 card. It'd be nice to have the Chase Amazon card so I could start building more of a relationship there besides the lion's share of my direct deposits

Growing plants:

BOFA secured 1-2-3 10/11

Orchard 12/11

DCU secured card 2/12

USAA secured loan 1/12

DCU auto loan 8/12

Hopefully there will be more clarity after relaxing in the garden and sipping my scotch for the next month and a half or so while partaking of the most excellent Tinu's famous mini-quiches!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

TNTransplant — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:18:19 GMT

Planting myself here (it's me that needs the help, not my cards) and putting freezes on all 3 of the CRAs - while it was a hugely productive month for me, it was more of an instant gratification rather than a strategic long-term plan. Not cool, and I'm disappointed in myself.

Anywho, I'm done. I need to get over the obsessive focus I have with improving my credit and let time/gardening take their effect on my credit profile. I have already reached my 2012 FICO Fitness Challenge goal (not sure about EX score, but it should be similar), and there's nothing else for me to do, really. If sometime late next year I were lucky enough to have a card under the "My Offers" boxl with PenFed, then I would take that. Otherwise, nothing until a possible mortgage in 2014.

Please help keep me accountable... :smileyfrustrated:

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

ItchyAppFingers — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:36:15 GMT

I want to join the garden club once and for all! But I would definitely need some of that anti-itch cream first. :p

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

cschick_old — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 03:59:07 GMT

I definitely got some itching late in August got a small soft increase on my Discover $750 increase to $2500 total limit. Got my bronze spade to dig around and try to save up some $$$ for my first house(still barely out on the horizon) and max up my cc rewards. Cheers!*Raising a Schlafy Oatmeal Stout to my fellow gardeners* Now i need to sit on my hands and not hit anymore luv buttons or app buttons for a few months.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

Middleswarth — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 04:33:07 GMT

Howdy

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

CS800 — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 04:55:09 GMT

In the gahhden, no more apps on my end. I'm commited for 12 months at least

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

arredondo3419 — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 07:39:42 GMT

Got 3 credit cards first in my credit history life. And. 2. Personal loans to help build credit 2 credit cards with NFCU. & THE 2 loans also with them I'm ready to wait in garden mode till December 2013 no apps till then. Then I will go for chase. Fredom American express zync and. Then discover more. :)

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

tcbofade — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 10:44:49 GMT

Howdy, howdy boys and girls. I'm about a week away from a Bronze spade...trying to behave myself for awhile! :p

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

DaveSignal — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 10:52:24 GMT

Just stopping in to shine my spade. . .

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

emptypockets — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:12:45 GMT

Checking into the garden for September! Working on my silver spade (9/25), and should have no problem getting there, as I see no new apps on the horizon. Plan is to chill out for the next few months, most likely until late December or January before any thought of new apps.. Still have several new accounts from June that need to age. On a positive note, got a Auto-CLInfrom US Bank Cash + in August, after only 2 months (went from 8k to 11.5k). Got denied AMEX CLI, but looking on bright side, got EX score (779, highest ever!). Also hit 800 on Walmart TU in August (also a high for me!). Good luck to everyone as you work on your goals for the next month!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

RockinRay — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 15:13:36 GMT

I'm still here...

No wants, no needs.

Just want the CLI's! :)

Goals are $10k with both Cap 1 and Discover. today they currently sit at $5k.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

djrez4 — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:56:22 GMT

Still here. USAA tells me I'm at 712/699/699. One more point on EQ and TU and I'll be at 700s across the board. Four of the cards from my app spree and my new auto loan have yet to report, so I'm expecting a big bump soon. Keep growing, garden!

And keep up the good work, everyone!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - September 2012

DaveSignal — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 13:08:53 GMT

djrez4 wrote:
Still here. USAA tells me I'm at 712/699/699. One more point on EQ and TU and I'll be at 700s across the board.

Those are not FICO scores, but welcome to the garden!