Gardening... and CLI

[Jesedmotherof5]

So I'm in the garden....
5 new trades
Cap1 sec 1401 x 10 mons 600/ 1401
Cap1 plat uns x3.5 mons 0/1000
Discover It x 3.5 mons 0/800
Target x 1 Mon 0/300
Kolhs x 1 Mon 0/400
Took a bit of a hit with aaoa and decrease in score this month plus I let sec report in accident.
I tried credit line increases today on cap1 they wanted to give me a whopping 100$ increase... Which I declined. And got a denial from dit with a 3 to 5 day notice..
I have a rehabed student loan that just started reporting last month by naviet but original lates remained and 1 collection on Ex... That is 33mons old. Ive disputed but have no proof that its not mine... 600$ is alot to just pay and I'm afraid of reaging.
My question is how do I garden... How do I get my current accounts to grow. I hear such good things on hear about getting cli... But Im feeling stagnant.

[Anonymous]

How do you garden? 

Time and patience. Gardening, to a degree, is the very essence of being stagnant. That's the whole point. 

Hunker down and sit tight for the long haul. 

If there's one thing I would consider for you, it would be waiting until that Cap 1 unsecured hits the six month mark, then I'd consider closing that Cap 1 secured card and reapping for a second unsecured card. But DO NOT do it until the unsecured card hits your six month mark, or you will be denied on any new application. Plus you'll lose the secured credit limit reporting which can make UTIL an issue.  It would, however, free up your deposit to potentially pay off that last collection on EX.

Doing this, however, goes against the notion of gardening. So if you're committed to the garden, sit tight and don't make those moves.  

You've got to let that Discover IT age (is it secured?), as well as the Kohls card. 

It's an exercise in patience. Use a card, pay it off, rinse, repeat. It takes time.