1 year anniversary

hemi961 · ‎11-30-2009

One year ago this month I had never heard of a Fico Score. I have a home and an office that I purchased on my 26th birthday with 30 year mortgages. I paid them off in 10 years and they no longer appear on my reports. The last money I borrowed was in 1987 and it was $5,000.00 to do some work on my office. I called the bank, explained what I wanted and was told to come down and pick the check up. I asked what I would need to bring in the way of documentation and I was told that I didn't need anything, just come down and pick up the check. Those were the good old days. Skip ahead now to November 2008 when I decided that the 3 credit cards I had with total credit limits of $1300 might need to be bolstered before credit tightened up any further. I checked my scores (on here) and they were 800, 803 and 806. However, my file was thin as the only things reporting were the 3 credit cards I mentioned earlier. I didn't have any thing derogatory to clean up, but I wasn't sure I could get any good cards since I had very little history reporting. Reading these boards was a tremendous help and I still get on a few times a day to hear of the successes of everyone on here. I thank you for your influence, even though I ignored the wise advice given to others and applied for way too many cards. I have yet to experience any AA although I have badly wounded my scores by adding so many inquiries and new accounts. If I had to do it all over again I'm happy to report that I probably would do it just the same way and take the same beating. I can't complain about any of the CC companies, I haven't had a problem with any of them YET. Here are my results in the order I got them.

BofA Accelerated rewards AMEX

Cabela's

Amazon.com Store card

Chase Amazon, converted to Freedom Plus

ShopNBC Mastercard

State Farm

Alliant

National City

Discover More

Ameriprise

PSECU

Andrews FCU

Navy Federal X 2

Amex Costco TrueEarnings

USAA Amex

I don't recommend this to anyone, just wanted to say thanks and give a little update on a years progress. Now just waiting to see if there is any regression. Through applying for awhile, at least until I open a thread on here and find someone reporting on a card of interest. Over the next couple of years I plan on cutting it down to 8 cards but they've all been good to me so I'm not mad enough at anyone to shred their card. Maybe I'll get a little AA and that will help with my decision.

Thanks again, I enjoy reading your posts.

Message Edited by hemi961 on 12-01-2009 09:26 AM

haulingthescoreup · ‎11-30-2009

Thanks for the update! It's always great to hear success stories.

After a while, you might find that the thrill of trying to keep all these cards sleek and well-fed and attended to will start to grow old, and then you might see some candidates for closure.

But as long as they're all positive forces for your financial activities, that's a hard collection to beat. Congrats!

* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007

Anonymous · ‎11-30-2009

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
Thanks for the update! It's always great to hear success stories.

After a while, you might find that the thrill of trying to keep all these cards sleek and well-fed and attended to will start to grow old, and then you might see some candidates for closure.

But as long as they're all positive forces for your financial activities, that's a hard collection to beat. Congrats!

One way to keep cards exercised without being a big chore is to pick a recurring bill to auto-draft that card. Then set that card up to auto-pay the full balance. In this way you have a known recurring expense that will exercise your card and the balance will be paid from your normal checking account/source of payments without manual processing.

Anyway, that's how I take care of a few of mine.

MarineVietVet · ‎11-30-2009

@Anonymous wrote:

One way to keep cards exercised without being a big chore is to pick a recurring bill to auto-draft that card. Then set that card up to auto-pay the full balance. In this way you have a known recurring expense that will exercise your card and the balance will be paid from your normal checking account/source of payments without manual processing.

Anyway, that's how I take care of a few of mine.

That's exactly how I do it. It works great.