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I messed up my credit about 4 years ago but I am working really hard to fix it. Went through a divorce and had to use credit cards to pay bills.
I had really good credit too, had chase freedom with 8k limit,capital one platinum 2000 limit and macys and some other cards. I owed around $10000 on those cards and were late a few times because of my situation.
About 2 years ago I became a member with Careone and enrolled my MACYS(now paid and closed), capital one and chase freedom in their program. I now owe $1000 on Capital one and $2000 on Freedom and will be paying them off in full next month.
I use the freecreditreport.com to check my scores ever so often. My score on their is 698. 66% available credit, 3 negative a/cs (i believe the ones that were in the careone program) and 10 hard inquiries (tried getting a bank loan for a car last year)
Currently this is what I have
Barclays card (VISA) ( apple rewards) $1000 limit $200 balance
Dell financial account $1500 limit 0 balance
Express Store card $600 limit $0 balance
I would like to apply for an auto loan and a new credit card(macys and discover). My question is should I wait until I pay the two accounts off that are in the debt management program before I try to get a loan. Also I wanna try to get an increase in credit line on Barclays, good idea ?
To start a new thread in Undestanding FICO Scoring
I have learned the hard way, that it is best to pay off old debt before applying for new one, and you seem to have done a great job on paying off the debts so far....Well done. I would also start sending Goodwill letters out to the creditors that have been paid off to see if they would remove the late payments of it accounts, if you have not done so already. It is worth spending some months time working to get the derogatory information off your credit reports before applying for new debt.
Since the Autoloan is a different type of loan you might actually be better off trying to get that first for now, since that will help you add a different type of credit to your overall profile. I am sure others will be able to provide more input on your situation. Good Luck and keep us posted.
With a current score of just under 700, first paying down your % util would almost certainly put you in a vary favorable position for both loan an new CC approval. I would make that step first.
Whether to app for a loan or new CC would seem to depend on how critical the new auto is. That would trump the issue over what comes first.
I think your idea of one more major bank card is good. More beneficialm in my opinion, than an increase in CL on your current card, as it would give you two major revolving lines of credit rather than just one back card, and would also allow you to carry a balance on one card without always being at 100% of accts with a reporting balance.
Yes I agree but which company should I apply with next. I will not apply until I get out of the DMP which is very soon (2 months or so). I have chase and capital one in the program right now so I am thinking I should apply to something else.
Also today Express store card raised my limit from $600 to $750.. all i did was pay $100 to a balance of $150.
I am looking to buy a car in September, I don't want to risk anything now, I have 9 hard inquires at the moment.
When you say goodwill letters what should I say in them exactly.