Thanks for your insight. 
I think i'll just continue to monitor, dispute, and get fight to get all oldies off sooner if possible and continue to wait it out.
My hope one day is to buy my first home ASAP. And I dont think 2 secured credit cards will show the balances and payment history for a bank to give me a loan once the baddies fall off. Thats where my thought of a couple grand secured card came in.
I understand the reasoning, for sure. But I think that you may be able to get a CC that will be able to grow with you sooner than you think (without costing you a ton of money). And congrats on the house goal! You're already taking steps to make that a reality, and that's awesome.
Thank you! And something like taking out a secured personal loan of a few grand or more from my credit union and paying it off in 6 months would or wouldn't help? I am willing to fork out just about any kind of money if it helps within the next 6-12 months so I have a decent enough TL's to show my bank for a mortgage.
As soon as possible when the baddies fall off. They have already started to and should be all off within the year. I made my mistakes thankfully all at once. I want to apply sooner than a year as well but like to have something more than a $500 secured and a $300 secured card to show for it. I dont think a bank will give me a 60-90k loan with just that showing. But maybe they would and I am not giving myself enough credit.
I also did not know that Cap1 reports secured cards as just a regular credit card, is this true? The limt is 3k as well on them secured cards.
Somewhere I have it in my mind that when I go to the bank to get my home loan I better have a decent TL on there.
Also with a TL of 2-3k wouldn't that make it easier in 6-12 months times to apply and get some decent unsecured cards?
@meehan22 wrote:I also did not know that Cap1 reports secured cards as just a regular credit card, is this true? The limt is 3k as well on them secured cards.
Somewhere I have it in my mind that when I go to the bank to get my home loan I better have a decent TL on there.
Also with a TL of 2-3k wouldn't that make it easier in 6-12 months times to apply and get some decent unsecured cards?
Cap1 doesn't report secured cards as secured cards, they just show up as credit cards. And yes, some lenders will be more willing to extend certain CLs when they see that someone else has done so already.
Thanks for that information as well!
I am taking a look at my Nov 2013 report and it seems like there should be a huge clean up by the time I see my Feb 2014 update I hope a majority of them have fallen off.
I have a mess of cards that were closed October 07-January of 2008. So with the statue of limits being 6 years it should be coming off now. Or are old closed down, settled credit cards not the same as collection accounts? Like to see these guys completely gone. Or since they were settled and eventually paid off they will continue to report for 10 years?