Rebuilt, Closing Subprimes, and Just Landed Penfed!

[Anonymous]

What tremendous progress you have made! Congratulations on your determination and planning! Thanks for posting your successes! I agree with other posters that you might want to rid yourself of the cards you mentioned. 

Welcome to the PenFed family! 

Hope you join us in the garden now.

[takeshi74]

---

@creditreformer wrote:

So if you were me, given all the givens, what would you do re closing the CCs? What would be your NEXT 'credit plans?'

---

You can't rely on polling to determine such things.  You need to consider your needs/wants, goals, priorities, preferences, etc and the info in the Closing Credit Cards thread linked in the Helpful Threads sticky as well as the general "at least 2-3 cards for scoring purposes" suggestion.

Determining your credit plans isn't just about following the herd.  It's about assessing where you specifically need/want to go and how you're going to get there.  You know which cards are of use to you and which are not.  If you're applying for new cards you should be doing so keeping your strategy in mind.  Your strategy will tell you what you need to do.  If you don't have one then you need to form one.  It doesn't have to be formally written or anything.  You just need to know what purpose your cards serve, what purpose your new cards serve and whether or not any of your existing cards no longer serve a purpose.

[creditreformer]

Yes, I'm back IN the garden. Other than perhaps Alliant, DCU, a better Chase, Citibank, and USAA Unsecured CCs (but none of those are 'must have right this minute- or even  any time soon'), I don't 'need' any more ccs.

It's funny. I called Penfed today to see if they'd unrestrict my share account and give me a checking account finally LOL What a difference a few (or lots) of FICO points make- they were so polite and gave me a checking account, lifted the restrictions, and kept asking well, what about any other loans? car loan? PLOC? Need a mortgage? LOLOLOL Before, I couldn't even get a SECURED cc w/them.

I don't currently have any 'installment' accounts on my credit which is hurting me somewhat, so I may do a car loan w/Penfed, but I (a) would put a LARGE downpayment down and (b) I already have the cash in the bank for the car I want. However, I'm not sure an 'installment' loan just for FICO points is needed. 

We will see- I have time to decide that. Right now, I'm just happy that over the past few days, I've added Amex SCP (8k), Discover IT (6.5k), and Penfed (32k). Hoping they grow nicely w/CLIS- and yes, they will be PIF.