Starting down the road towards repairing my credit

[Swifterz]

So I've started down the road to finally repairing mine and my wife's credit. In February this year I was finally able to secure my first full time job since I separated from the military in June 2011. I had always been very poor with managing my money and especially our credit. I started out in June by applying and getting approved for 2 secured credit cards through USAA, and I also have a new car loan taken out in February this year. So far no late payments and will keep that up. My utilization is a little on the high side, this was before I found on these boards to have only one at 10% or less and the remainder at 0%, which I should have that accomplished by next month. I had already settled 2 accounts on my wife's CR before I knew to do a PFD, but have sent GWs out to try and remove those. The remainder of the negatives on my wife’s account have PFD's sent and I'm ready to pay them, her score is at 599 and should continue to improve. 

My CR on the other hand had a few more negatives then hers. When I found this board a few months ago, I read and read to figure out the best plan on action to improve our scores. I was overwhelmed by the amount of work and knowing I couldn't pay everything off at once so I had put off sending out GWs and PFDs. So starting this week I finally got to work on the GW and PFDs. What I went ahead and did was prepare my PFD for all my negative accounts and will send them out as I'm able to pay for them. This for me removed a lot of stress and I can finally say I'm finally starting down the road. I just wanted to thank all the people on this board that contribute and help out people so they can learn how to repair their scores. I'll use this thread to update one my PFD and GW success and to ask further questions so I don't clutter up the boards. Thanks again!!!

[Bleu]

My only advice would be let her work on her own report. Trust me on this one. Dont give her the idea you'll always work on it for her.

[coldnmn]

Congrats! It's feally nice to see someone having a plan for financial health.  Thanks for sharing.

[Swifterz]

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@Bleu wrote:

My only advice would be let her work on her own report. Trust me on this one. Dont give her the idea you'll always work on it for her.

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Normally I would agree with that, but it was me that also caused her credit issues. Since I was the only one working at the time and because I refused to let her help run our financials, she was usually in the dark on our financial obligations and is what lead both of us having poor credit scores. My wife has always been the responsible one when it came to money management, and it was me that would spend money without worrying about our financial obligations. I have since finally admitted that I had an issue with that. Since then we both sit down and pay the bills on time, created a budget and make sure that we stay within our budget and not spend money just because there is money in the checking account. So I feel wholly responsible for her poor credit and it's something I feel I have to do because I was the sole cause of it. I've done a lot of growing up in the past two years, and finally working to repair the damage I have caused.  As they say the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem, and I've finally been able to do that.