We recently filed Ch 7 Bankruptcy in Oct 2008. The bankruptcy was due to outstanding medical bills as we are young newly weds and had no medical insurance when we were pregnant with and had both of our children. Yes, I know this was stuipd, and now I have a very deep and sincere understanding as to why and am living with the results today. We have health insurance now.
I pulled my credit report and score today (Sept 09) and am just begining to understand how a credit score works. Online it says that the primary way to increase my score is to pay all my bills on time for at least 2 years, the only problem with that is I have NO bills other than a small student loan that is deffered because I am currently in school. Should I take my loan out of defferment and start paying on it to increase my payment history or should I open a new line of credit like a small (prepaid???) $200 limit credit card -- or both? Doesn't your score drop a few tragic points when you open up a new line of credit?
We also have two vehicles that are paid off (my dad gave us his old Explorer and we inherited a older car). They are not going to last forever. One of them has 220xxx miles on it. Would 12 - 20 months be enough time to raise my score from 552 to somewhere around 680 so that I can finance a used vehicle for about $5000?
PLEASE HELP!!
