Next Steps For Me

[jodie3134]

Hi Everyone -

This is my first post on the forum after spending a lot of time reading up   My husband and I recently filed Chapter 7 and we were discharged Dec 26, 2012.  I'm looking for some advice on what my next steps should be to help clean up my credit.  Here is our story...

My husband lost his job a few years ago and he decided to go back to school.  I make a decent salary so he goes to school at night and is home with our 3 kids during the day while I'm at work.  We have one year left until graduation (woo hoo).  With only one income we were struggling with Credit cards and after a few years of shuffling money around and robbing peter to pay paul, we decided to file.  We still have our house (which we plan on keeping) and reaffirmed our two leased cars since the payments were low and we need the transportation.  I have no late payments on our credit report and our scores were in the 730s when we filed.

Any advice on our next steps?  I would like to pull the free credit reports but am not sure if I should give it some time since our discharge was only 1 week ago.  I did sign up for Credit Karma and it is showing my score at 706.  I don't really believe it, but hope its not too far off... 

We would like to have a credit card again.  Should I wait for offers?  I have been getting auto offers daily at home since we filed, but no credit card offers.  I did go on to Capital One's website for the preapproval process (because I was curious) and I got the message that it couldn't make a direct match with my info, but it recommended the cash card and platinum card.   Is it smarter to wait a few months for a card?

Our one car lease is up April 2014... that is the next time I plan to apply for any type of loan

Any advice would be much appreciated!!!  Thanks!

[Vtso4]

Hey Jodie,

I'm sorry to hear about your husband losing his job. Although I'm glad he's graduating soon and hopefully that leads to employment. Anyways, I will be frank and say it doesn't sound like you have much of a financial strategy or budgeting plan. Credit cards will continue down a path of constant borrowing with interest. The goal is to stop borrowing. I would hold off on apply for credit cards for the time being until you get your finances in order. Instead use cash or your debit card. If you don't have the money then the simple answer is you can't afford it yet. Those credit card offers are only mass marketing databases that "assume" you might be a potential canidate for credit. The fact of the matter is, you are not ready yet. I think there are a lot of things you and your family need to talk about. One major factor is the leases on your cars. Imagine how much more money you would have if you didn't have lease payments. I recommend saving up and buying a used car for a few grand. You will be amazed how it feels no longer having a car payment. You need to seriously cut your expenses and live on what you can afford, especially with a single earner in a family of 5. Now is not the time to look for credit. I hope this helps.

[jodie3134]

Thanks for your thoughts... but let me clarify some things.  1. We do have a budgeting strategy and are now living within our means and paying bills and saving money monthly.  2.  I should have mentioned in my orginal post... I am not looking for a credit card to begin using again.  I am looking for a way to help clean up my credit report as best as I can and I know that getting a card will help with this.  3.  As for my leases... the payments are low and once the leases are up, we will look at other options for having transportation.

So I guess my main questions are around cleaning up my credit report/score...  anyone have any thoughts as to how long I should wait to run my credit report to see how things are reporting and if they are reporting accurately?