Happy dancing over here...
11 months ago my report was in rough shape. Handful of collection accounts, student loan default on the reports along with associated collection accounts while I was rehabbing the loan, lates on a bunch of things, etc. When our car died the only auto loan i could get last year was up around 17%. I have been working hard to clean things up and got a card from barlay a couple months back which was a huge step and today got an offer email to refi the car with USAA. I took a shot at having made enough impact on cleaning up my report and got the refi at 4.95%!!! The cross promotion offer after the approval was for the mastercard platinum and figured I might as well give it a shot... $6,000 instant decision. My wife and I were stunned. We were already paying off the other card every month and will do the same with this one, but what a difference a year makes! EQ FICO went from the low 500s a year ago to 675 on the decision note we got in the account today. Around 150 points in 11 months. The guidance and support from this community has been amazing and helped us immensely.
Having the cards is just part of our rebuilding strategy as we have our sights set on our goal of buying our first home on good terms. We have spent the past 7 years living without CCs and will carry those habits into how we use them now that we have them again. The monthly savings in the car payment will go straight back into the car payments so we can pay it off that much faster.
As far as cleanup left to do...
I have a paid medical collection showing on EQ and EX that disappeared from TU when I asked them to verify the original account. Sallie Mae is still not reporting quite right on two reports after the rehab, and I have a stack of 30,60 and one 90 day late on a car loan from 3 years ago. I think the best I will be able to do is to get the student loans right and continue to push for the medical collection to be removed, I will have to wait out the lates reporting on the car loan for a few more years. Yay!
Starting Score: 12/19/12 - USAA EXP 564 EQU 564 TU 568 MyFico 612
Great work and it always pays off.
