Well, approaching it from a first-steps-first point of view, I would try my darndest to clean up my current CR before looking to new credit as a means to build your credit score.
Getting new credit to rebuild is difficult if your score is low.
Is there anything in your current CR that you can address now, and hopefully get deleted, before its normal CR deletion date? Any inaccurate information? Any unpaid debts that you can offer a pay-for-delete (PFD)? Any paid accounts that you can pursue good-will (GW) letters? Any current accounts in good-standing with high percent utilizations that you can pay-down?
Once you get your full CR, I suggest you start as follows:
Dont look at your CR in terms of accounts, Look at it in terms of each delinquency and derog in your CR.
Focus first on monthly delinquencies on each OC account.
List each monthly delinquency on each OC account by date and severity (e.g., 30-day late 5/2005; 60-day late 6/2005, etc)
Add 7 years from each individual delinquency, and you have a complete summary of when each monthly delinquency individually drops from your CR.
After doing that, then turn to each charge-off and collection in your CR.
The single date to identify for each CO and CA is the date of first monthly delinquency on the OC account that preceded the CO or CA. Just go back to the list of OC account delinquencies already compliled, and locate that date. Add 180 days to that DOFD, and the OC or CA must drop from your CR after 7 years from this date.
How to use your CR for credit repair depends on the derogs that lie therein. Put together a list of the delinquencies and derogs, and you will get some sound advice here on the forum on how to address each. Can you post them for us?
