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[Anonymous]

Hey guys, I've been browsing for a few months now and rebuilding my credit for the last year. I have a couple of marks on my reports, literally two from hospital bills. They fall off in two years, but for now I'm content with letting them sit. My Equifax sits at 630, TU at 651 and Experian at 641. Until recently my only card was a secured capital one with a $200 CL. I applied earlier this year for a QS instead of a QS1 by mistake and was denied. They upped my CL to $750 as a response to that it seems. It is my oldest line of credit at three years. I turn 29 this month, am married with a two year old son. I'm sure you guys have heard the story before, but it wasn't until recently that I started to worry about my scores.

I work for AT&T and I am a renter. I've decided to put off buying a home until I know where my job will land me. I gross around 65k a year, but that could double very soon which is why I am waiting on the house. I decided to put my pre-approval with USAA to the test a few days ago and was approved for their World Mastercard with a 5k limit. After that I did some thinking and decided to push my luck for their AMEX and it yeilded an approval with a 6k limit. Now, I am a reasonable guy and have been very financially responsible of recent. That being said I have no safety net in terms of people that I can go to for financial assistance. That works fine for me as I have always made it, but guys, I was pretty darn excited on those approvals. So I thought about it and since the hard pulls only last two years and I don't plan to buy a house for two years I said screw it. I also applied for a Chase Freeedom and a Discover IT. The first came in at 2.5k and the later at 2k. So to sum up I went from a $750 limit to 16k across five cards in a day.

I don't carry balances and my attitude is use credit for everything I can afford to pay in full each month. I have always operated that way with the exception of those two hospital bills. Due to the hospitals not wanting to work with me and my lack of caring for them after that. I have the cards in my wallet that I want for now and am content to sit and just build for the next year or two. So I just wanted to say hello, if you have any advice, or remarks I would love to hear from you.

[Anonymous]

No advice? I'm surprised! Haha.

[Anonymous]

Grats on the new cards.  $16k is pretty good.  I'm in a very very similar situation as you.  My scores are very similar too.  I only have a capital one mastercard platinum $500 CL.  I've been thinking about applying for new cards but I haven't because:

1) I'm disputing some inaccurate information on equifax and transunion

2) I have 2 negative closed accounts that fall off in 6-8 months

3) I don't need the credit...I just want the cards so I can build my credit

So for you, I'm happy for you, because you finally got those cards and nice CLs that I want.  The only advice I would say for you is:

1) Don't leave the cards with $0.00 balances.   That looks bad.  I learned this the hard way.

2) Don't use them too much.  You want them all to be around 10% balance usage etc. but also you want to pay them off at the end of the month if you can.

3) One thing you can try doing is a PFD letter (Pay for Deletion) you can google PFD letter template.  You can try mailing those for the hospital bills.  That way if they agree, then you could pay them in full, and then they would agree to delete them so that they disappear off of your reports.  That would be HUGE for your credit scores.

[Anonymous]

Thanks I'll take a look at writing those letters. From what I have read it seems the best way to boost scores is to pick one card to actually report a balance monthly. So in my case, I use all five here and there, but pay four off before they report a balance and allow the fifth to report a 1-9% balance every month before paying it in full. Any truth to that?

[Anonymous]

First, you want make sure all cards except one have a $0 balance. If you use them, pay them off before the statement report date. Call the bank and ask them when the statement report date is. 

Keep your cards under 30% on at least 1.

Banks don't have a problem with you paying your cards off but, you want at least beable to show utlization on your one card.