@Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone,
I have been lurking for a while now. After looking over the credit education services for a bit (Credit Karma, Credit Sesame), I bit the bullet and subscribed to the 3 bureau monthly reporting through myFICO. I love the greater transparency on three of the FICO scores to have a greater idea as to what is happening with my credit.
As for background, my credit took a beating through a divorce and some medical bills.
Current situation- Equifax: 584; TransUnion: 579; Experian: 571.
My scores were in the 530s as recently as a month ago. I'm paying off my old derogs and actually just paid the last one that showed unpaid across any of the bureaus. It's a little over a grand and will update before long. I opened a Cap One secured card with a limit of 501 and also have an unsecured Cap One with a limit of 500. They have sent a few communications noting it will be bumped to 750 if I make 5 consecutive on time payments. I am keeping my utilization at least below 30%, preferably lower and paying off each statement, too. I just wanted to have some revolving credit activity as I currently just have a 15k car loan and student loan of about 6.7k. The CB don't reflect having credit cards yet so I'm assuming it will go up- the inquiries already show so the damage has been done. 4 inquiries with one falling off in April.
I have good income and have been paying off a lot of items over the last few years. I just didn't really look directly at my demons in the credit report until recently. Any suggestions? I really value what I have been reading from the community and think the people here are wonderful. I actually had an offer for Fidelity Investments about a year ago and they had to rescind over my derogatories. That helped renew my focus on cleaning things up. That worked out- I have a much better and a more high paying job at an employer I've had a while. It hurt my pride just enough to make me work harder, however, so I think it's good in the long run.
My primary goal is to build my credit so that down the road (quite a way down) a mortgage is feasible. Also, I currently have an auto loan at about 15% that I would love to refi or pay down enough to have other options. HIGH payment of about 408. I'm about a month ahead on it. My next due date is 2/23 and I'll make sure I stay ahead.
Thanks everyone! I look forward to interacting with you.
Swampy
If all your CAs are paid and reporting paid you need to start GW letter campaign asking for removal of those. You also want to have 3 bankcards and 1 store card at minimum to build your Fico. You might try for a Barclays rewards card or even check around your town for CUs, CUs are known to be nore forgiving on credit probs than banks. There are some national ones as well DCU, SDFCU, NASA and NFCU if you can qualify would be the best. Good luck and welcome to MyFico 
gdale6 wrote:
If all your CAs are paid and reporting paid you need to start GW letter campaign asking for removal of those. You also want to have 3 bankcards and 1 store card at minimum to build your Fico. You might try for a Barclays rewards card or even check around your town for CUs, CUs are known to be nore forgiving on credit probs than banks. There are some national ones as well DCU, SDFCU, NASA and NFCU if you can qualify would be the best. Good luck and welcome to MyFico
Thank you! I just got those two cards in December. Should I wait a bit before getting a third card or just take the hit knowing that's a temporary blip on the radar?
I always thought store cards weren't that great. Would I be okay to stick with bank cards?
My employer has a CU associated with it in NJ. Maybe I can ask about it. Discover prequal comes up with offer every time I check the site. Should I avoid it? I know it's not accepted as widely as other cards.
From reading on here, I realize I need to do the GW campaign. I was just waiting for them to update to show paid and figured I could dig into it more once that time comes. I'll have to find templates/suggestions here in the forums as I know it has been written about extensively.
That's what I hear. It seems there used to be a prequal on their site. It seems to have been taken down. I know that doesn't guarantee anything, I just like dipping my toe in the pool before I pull the trigger.