It has been a blast so far for me and my wife gathering together some good cards and working on our scores! Today I thought I would share an update, for all that have helped us along the way. For the purposes of this post I will be using our credit karma vantage scores as we do not have any information on my wives FICO score yet.
Myself: 24 M
Started a few months back with only one five year old Discover More card reporting. No missed or late pays. 740 Vantage 3.0 for July. 786 Discover TU FICO for July.
Wife: 24 F
Started a few months back with a single medical collection, no credit cards, and 9 deferred federal student loans reporting. 575 Vantage 3.0 for July.
Here are the steps I took and the order I took them:
Negotiated pay for removal with the medical center, not the collector. Received verification of removal in writing on company letterhead before paying. Paid. Monitored wives credit karma for removal> I am approved for Sallie Mae MasterCard>PC my Discover More to a Discover IT>Add wife as AU with my Discover>Collection removed off wife report. New 675 Vantage Score 3.0>Her AU status shows up. New 750 Vantage Score 3.0>I am approved for Chase Freedom>Opened account at Alliant CU>Wife is approved for her own Discover IT> I apply for CLI on my Discover and was granted my first CLI ever of 500 bringing me to 2,500.
Random Thoughts:
We used the referral program to open her Discover IT, so we each got 50$ credit with her potentially getting 100$ if its doubled (depending how its input). I liked the IT card for her because of the current apple pay promo and the free monthly FICO. It also will cover our non-category spending for one year with the double cash back.
We are using Mint to budget, and monitor our spending too.
Some things we are still working toward by Christmas:
- Finish signing up for Income Based Loan Repayment, so we will be eligible for special programs in the future.
- Set up and max out both our Roth IRAs for 2015, looking at an index strategy with Vanguard.
- Hit 500$ spend to get 100$ back on Chase Freedom, stockpile all points for an eventual CSP.
- Join DCU, deposit 500 in savings to get the 3% back.
- Order all of our free annual credit reports, then freeze them if they are clean.
As of today her Vantage scores have shot up, with my Vantage and FICO trending slightly (10-25 pts.) down due to new accounts. I am still happy with the progress we have made over the last couple of months, and think we are building a solid base to go from in the future. As always I love getting any input positive or negative on our credit journey. Thank you all for helping us figure out our steps so far!
