Need Help, Riddled with Anxiety

[Anonymous]

Please Bare with me while I tell this story and explain myself.  I had always had credit in the upper 6s and low 7s.  I was in my late 20s, (28-29) when my fathers contracting business finally went under due to the economy.  He had a side business as a firearms instructor, but that would not cover the bills.  He took a job as a part time employee at a local military base range as an instructor, but working for minimum wage it wasnt covering the bills either.  My mother is only a teacher assistant.  Growing up they were always upper middle class and now suffering.  My sister and I stepped in to help.  I began working a lot of part time (im a cop so we always have that side job) and got a loan to pay my fathers truck off and began paying their mortgage along with mine.  Next, my major part time job (45 an hour) ended and I was stuck with more bills then I could afford.  I worked as much as I could but part time and overtime fell off.  I always knew not to live off of part time / overtime but I took a chance to help my parents and keep my little sister in college.  Needless to say, I sold my truck and have eliminated nearly 10k in debt.  I have roughly 2-3k left which is great beacuse I see the light at the end of tunnel.  Im capable of saving almost 1k a month, if not more due to my awesome girlfriend living with me.  Heres the deal, I am at a point now where I will be needing a new truck this winter.  I have a dream truck, the one I sold.  I also ran a side business of debris hauling and such and need a 3/4-1 ton diesel to complete this.  I want to get started again with it, but slowly go bigger, so I need a truck capable to grow.  I just pulled my transunion and it sat at 580.  Other then paying everything off soon, I aquired a new credit card and plan to use it for little things like fuel or food, things I would spend money on anyways and pay it off every two weeks.  Is there anything else I can do to get my credit up sooner then later?

[gdale6]

Welcome to My Fico

How many open CCs do you currently have?   What are the derogs on your CRs?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Please Bare with me while I tell this story and explain myself.  I had always had credit in the upper 6s and low 7s.  I was in my late 20s, (28-29) when my fathers contracting business finally went under due to the economy.  He had a side business as a firearms instructor, but that would not cover the bills.  He took a job as a part time employee at a local military base range as an instructor, but working for minimum wage it wasnt covering the bills either.  My mother is only a teacher assistant.  Growing up they were always upper middle class and now suffering.  My sister and I stepped in to help.  I began working a lot of part time (im a cop so we always have that side job) and got a loan to pay my fathers truck off and began paying their mortgage along with mine.  Next, my major part time job (45 an hour) ended and I was stuck with more bills then I could afford.  I worked as much as I could but part time and overtime fell off.  I always knew not to live off of part time / overtime but I took a chance to help my parents and keep my little sister in college.  Needless to say, I sold my truck and have eliminated nearly 10k in debt.  I have roughly 2-3k left which is great beacuse I see the light at the end of tunnel.  Im capable of saving almost 1k a month, if not more due to my awesome girlfriend living with me.  Heres the deal, I am at a point now where I will be needing a new truck this winter.  I have a dream truck, the one I sold.  I also ran a side business of debris hauling and such and need a 3/4-1 ton diesel to complete this.  I want to get started again with it, but slowly go bigger, so I need a truck capable to grow.  I just pulled my transunion and it sat at 580.  Other then paying everything off soon, I aquired a new credit card and plan to use it for little things like fuel or food, things I would spend money on anyways and pay it off every two weeks.  Is there anything else I can do to get my credit up sooner then later?

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Work towards establishing three revolving accounts. Keep all but one paid in full before the statement closes, allow one to show a small balance of less than 10% when the statement closes. 

@If you have no installment loans, then get a secured loan from SDFCU for $500 @ 36 months. Thats will help with your credit mix.

[Anonymous]

I have a mortgage I pay every month

I have a cell phone I pay every month

I have utilities my gf pays all every month

I have just aquired one credit card that I have yet to use as I just activated it yesterday.

Im not sure what the question "what are the derogs on your CR?" means

[ezdriver]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have a mortgage I pay every month

I have a cell phone I pay every month

I have utilities my gf pays all every month

I have just aquired one credit card that I have yet to use as I just activated it yesterday.

Im not sure what the question "what are the derogs on your CR?" means

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You are on your way ... don't despair, just work on credit repair!

Derogs = any negative items in your credit reports. Examples are: charge offs, judgements, late payments, auto repossessions, etc.

The backgroud info is good but details on your credit profile are much better to help us provide meaningful guidance and feedback. All the best to you.

[Anonymous]

What exactly should I do?  Where would one go to check the fine print in their credit. The score I received was off my credit card info/acct.  I like the fico thing they have going on here but I don't want to pay monthly.  I'd pay once to see everything from all three but I don't want to get stuck into another monthly payment

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

If you only have one credit card and it's not yet reporting, you will see a big jump in score when it hits your credit reports.  Then you need two to three more.  Ideally two more Visa/MC type cards and one store card like Wal-Mart.

Wait until that new card reports.  You may see a 30 to 40 point gain in score.

Then apply for two Capital one credit cards on the same day.  (Platinum and Quicksilver One).  (They pull all three reports, but if you apply for two cards in one day, sometime you can get two cards for the same three pulls).

Wait till these three cards are reporting and apply for a store card for credit mix.  Easy ones to get are Firestone and Kays Jewelers.  If your scores have jumped you can get Wal-Mart, Lowes, or a comenity card.

It sounds like you may not have any late payments in your history and your scores are low simply because you don't have anything reporting.  FICO wants to see three credit cards and likes to see an installment loan.  If you have no late payments, your scores should jump to 720 fairly quikcly.

Payments on cell phones and utilities don't help because they typically don't report to credit bureaus unless they go to collection.

[Anonymous]

I did have a history of late payments, not much though.  The credit card I just got was a capital one platinum card.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

Well you need three credit cards open, so apply for another Cap 1 and you should be approved.  The score hit for late payments is based on how late the payments were (30, 60, 90, 120 days), how many late payments there are, and importantly, how long has it been since the late payments occurred?

Assuming that you are at 580 with no credit cards reporting, it would seem reasonable, even with late payments, to get that score up to the 620 - 680 range.

You can get your credit reports for free from Credit Karma.  Their scores are fake scores, so don't believe their numbers, but you can see your actual reports and see what late payments are beiing reported on Transunion and Equifax.  You can update these every week for free.

If you provide details of what you owe and to whom, and what late payments/collections you have on your reports, people can advise you how to clean up the bad stuff.  But we need info to be able to help you.

[RobertEG]

Can you list any monthly delinquencies, collections, charge-offs or public records, such as judgments, that are reporting in your credit report, along with their dates of occurence?