First Day - Starting today. Help needed

[Anonymous]

Hello all- I am officially starting my journey today... after 5-6 years of avoding and just not caring... my current situation is as follows:

Current Credit:

No credit cards- no a single revoloving credit line on my report... just opened a 1k secured credit card with Bank of America- which is in the mail. 

Mortgage - last late was 2011 that's reported. I applied for a modification which i never received so I was 120+ days late and 30k behind -- which I paid and became current after realizing mod will never be approved. 

Charge offs: 1st premier and wells fargo- Wells fargo was bad. 

Collection: Allied financial - no clue where its from but I'm willing to pay as long as it's removed from my credit. It's only $340 

Bunch of closed accounts that report from years ago that were positive and some were late but been closed & paid over 6 years now. 

Biggest issue I see is tax liens:

October 2010- tax lien for 265,000  i'm making payments on this currently 

Two tax liens from 2014- 54k and 31k - both i paid off earlier this year. 

Please give me some hope here... Will I ever have decent credit w/ a huge tax lien and will ever even get approved for a unsecured due to the big tax lien? Where shoudl I start... 

My scores today EQ 635 TU 592 EX 608 

Please help. I would appreciate your help/feedback. I will keep this thread as my log... 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to myFICO!! Impressed that you caught up the $30k mortgage arrearage. You'll find great advice here.

[Anonymous]

You're off to a great start. You'll obtain some great advise on here.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both for the welcome and encouraging words.
I was able to get approved for a $800 limit discover it card... I'm excited to add another tradeline.

What's the process? I read about $2 balance? My goal was to charge 9-10% and pay if off every month... I read all about it and still confused. How can I get the most boost and eventually get a line increased?

[Anonymous]

I would charge more than 9 to 10 percent if i was focused on limit increases.

[Anonymous]

You can charge whatever you want as long as you pay it down before the statement cuts. The balance on your statement is what will be reported to the credit bureaus. So if you want to report 9 to 10%, just pay the bill down to that before your statement is created.

[Anonymous]

ok. So I should use it a lot more and before the stmts cuts pay it off or keep 9-10% for reporting purposes?

[Anonymous]

there's no benefit to keeping it at  10% all month except that you won't have to keep track and no risk of forgetting to pay it down before the statement, and you may not see the credit limit increases you want to if you're only using 10% and paying it off once each month, you're not showing any need for limit increases with that method

[Anonymous]

Ok perfect. Use as much as I can... Pay it off to zero before the stmt cuts.

[Anonymous]

With only one card you'll want to let a small balance report, maybe $10 (1% of $1k). For best results you want 3 cards working. Check pre-qualification at cap one site. If looks good for unsecured Platinum, apply. After approval, immediately try for unsecured Quicksilver One ($39 AF)). Only one pull on CR way. After 2 statements, Platinum can be upgraded to QS Rewards with no AF.

GL!