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Joined Alliant Credit Union - now what?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Joined Alliant Credit Union - now what?

I hope I'm posting this in the right place.  I've just started to work on my personal credit.  I read somewhere here that joining a credit union would be a good thing for my rebuilding.  Since I don't have any military ties, I chose Alliant.  I got all the checking account paperwork and have a small deposit in my account.  My question is, how I should handle the account?  Should I start using this as my main personal checking account?  I already have a checking account with Bank of America that I've had for several years.  I jumped te gun and applied for an Alliant credit card and was promptly denied (which I kind of expected).  I checked my Experian report the other day and saw that my score had dipped to 614.  I'm sure this is because of high utilization on my Cap One cards (platinum, Quicksilver and Sony) and my Discover Card. 

 

What I'm asking is how this credit union membership can help me in my rebuilding and what else I might do to get on the right track to higher scores.  I'm planning to pay my bills down this month but probably won't be able to make much of a dent until after the holidays.  I have a Discover at $1700 that won't budge (high utilization but they offer me balance transfers for the available balance all the time).  I've had the Discover for over 5 years and that's the highest it's ever been.  Capital One is not budging on any limit increases either.  I could probably paper a room with all the rejection letters!

 

I have quite a few store cards-Macys ($3800), Lowe's ($400), Walmart ($800), Overstock.com (around $2300).  I've closed several store cards I got when I discovered the Shopping Cart Trick (Victoria's Secret, Ann Taylor and a couple of others). 

 

Any comments of suggestions appreciated.  Thanks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message 1 of 3
2 REPLIES 2
gizmotchy
Valued Member

Re: Joined Alliant Credit Union - now what?

First thing, get those existing cards down to at least below 30% total utilization, preferably below 10%.  Optimum for scoring is to pay off all your cards before the statement cut date (not the pay by date) except one, and let its statement cut at around 9-10% of your total credit limit.  Do you have any form of installment loan (student loan, mortgage, auto loan)?  If not, probably next step would be to get an installment loan tradeline on your report.  Alliant can help with that via a "share secured" loan.  Basically, you get your share (savings) account up to say $1000 or so.  They will then give you a loan for 1000, which is "secured" by your savings account.  Once you complete your payments, you have a nice installment tradeline, and an extra thousand dollars in your account.

 

Pull your reports from annualcreditreport.com if you have not already, and start working on cleaning up any negative records on there.  How long have you had your CapOne?  They are usually fairly generous with credit increases, as long as you are making your regular payments.  And most of all, remember that rebuilding is not a sprint, it's a marathon.  There are simply somethings that only can happen with time - time spent for your bad stuff to age off, time spent for your existing accounts to age.



Beginning Scores 5/10/2014: EX 604, EQ 587, TU 658 Current 11/9/2015: EQ 665 TU 665 (FAKO) EX 659 (FAKO)
Message 2 of 3
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Joined Alliant Credit Union - now what?

Thanks VERY much for all the good info.  I'll start things this weekend, following your suggestions.  It'll take me a while to get that $1000 in my Alliant account but, as you said, this process will take time.  I'll report back on how I'm doing.  Again, thanks for taking the time to help.

Message 3 of 3
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