Perhaps I exaggerated a bit, but I'm not concerned about defaulting on our current open accounts. We are consistently paying 3-5x the minimum payment and have no late payments at all. We are in a position now to pay a little more, but the part we struggle with is that we are currently only making like $50-100 progress each month on each account. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're suggesting that we focus on paying the balances down as our first priority? Since we're working on limited funds each month, I'm wondering if I should focus more of our money on fixing the collections first or paying the balances down first... obviously all are important, but I can only do so much each month, hehe.
I see all the insight you provide around these parts, and your advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks 
@trnl2016 wrote:Perhaps I exaggerated a bit, but I'm not too concerned about defaulting on our current open accounts. We are consistently paying 3-5x the minimum payment and have no late payments at all. We are in a position now to pay a little more, but the part we struggle with is that we are only making like $50-100 progress each month on each account. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're suggesting that we focus on paying the balances down as our first priority?
I see all the insight you provide around these parts, and your advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks
OK, yes you need to keep those balances going downward, even if it is only a small amount each month - that would be my priority #1. That is going to be the key to recovering your soocres, and financial stability. When you are in a position to do so, try to negotiate a PFD for the derogs, or a settlement.
First of all, welcome.
The issue I see is you both are maxing your CCs, meaning you are spending more then you are making each month. As for your husband all it takes one collection to have creditors close all his accounts.
I would recommend cut your cards in half immediately. Go cash base(debit card) only till you pay your UTI down to under 30% (best case 10%) and forget about using your cards for rewards, given your high utilization and high APR. It negates the purpose of any rewards that you can possibly get from your cards.
With the cards that you have open, see what is the highest APR and focus on that card 1st, just add up your monthly interest and see how much you are paying in total. That is what you want to reduce the most.
The collection accounts are not that much! 2 things you can do: 1st CALL them, if you can afford PFD then go for it, if not then settle with them for half of the balance or whatever you feel comfortable with.
The biggest issue I see is stopping additional debit to your total.
To win this war go after small victories, one battle(CO) at a time. The fact that you are here and facing your issue is your 1st victory, every time you bring your UTI down 10% would be another victory.
About year and half ago, my score was 501 with more than 15K in collections, last 10 months I made over 1K in rewards from my CCs that I opened just for using them.
There are thousands of people like me in this site that turned things around. You guys are half as bad as where I was.
Good luck.
Thanks cybersamp, your advice and encouragement is much appreciated. Also, congrats on your successes.
I'm already seeing a common thread: stop the bleeding. My first priority is and will be to pay down the total balances. It will take time, but we can do it. Does it make a difference to get each individual account under 30% (or 10%) or to just get the total UTI under 30%?
Do you happen to have any insight into some of the other credit report-related questions I posted, such as whether I should have any old addresses removed, whether I should be concerned about items that were closed long ago, consolidating my Navient loans, etc?
@trnl2016 wrote:Thanks cybersamp, your advice and encouragement is much appreciated. Also, congrats on your successes.
I'm already seeing a common thread: stop the bleeding. My first priority is and will be to pay down the total balances. It will take time, but we can do it. Does it make a difference to get each individual account under 30% (or 10%) or to just get the total UTI under 30%?
Do you happen to have any insight into some of the other credit report-related questions I posted, such as whether I should have any old addresses removed, whether I should be concerned about items that were closed long ago, consolidating my Navient loans, etc?
In the end - no, it really doesn't. Just work to get the balances down as quickly as possible.
There are two ways to do this - method one, is basically what cyber suggests - attack the highest interest rate first. The other common method is the snowball - you throw everything at the lowest balance first, then roll that payment into the next lowest balance. This makes the most sense if you interest rate are similar.
What are the interest rates on each account?
@trnl2016 wrote:Thanks cybersamp, your advice and encouragement is much appreciated. Also, congrats on your successes.
I'm already seeing a common thread: stop the bleeding. My first priority is and will be to pay down the total balances. It will take time, but we can do it. Does it make a difference to get each individual account under 30% (or 10%) or to just get the total UTI under 30%?
Do you happen to have any insight into some of the other credit report-related questions I posted, such as whether I should have any old addresses removed, whether I should be concerned about items that were closed long ago, consolidating my Navient loans, etc?
It’s widely considered over 30% will affect your credit negatively and under 10% its good, high utilization will bring scores down significantly and if you’re planning on getting a loan, you may want to consider those milestones.
@trnl2016 wrote:Some advice I’d love:1. I have Credit One reporting both as a CO under “Accounts” and as a collections account. Is that normal? Should I try and get the CO removed? You can file a dispute for duplicate report if the reporting date is the same, however if it’s been reported from Credit One and now the collection agency they may not remove it. But I would say give a shot!2. Should I work on trying to PFD (or DV or GW?) my collections before paying down our current balances, or should we get our balances down as a higher priority? We only have about $1000/mo we can spend on paying cards and/or collections. I say both, some PFD may take few months to negotiate. Is best to start a conversation with them so they stop calling you and avoid getting a judgment against you.3. How does SOL work? I lived in California until mid-2015, and now live in Texas. It is 4 years for each state, so I think I’m in the clear / past SOL on two of my collections. What does that mean? What can I do? DV? You have some CO that dates back to 2011-12 therefore CB may remove it soon after its paid anyway for SOL. In my state its 7 years and I had some collection fall off month after it was resolved or couple of years. Take a look at you TU CR, it should have a date for old accounts as when they going to expire.4. I have a couple of old accounts that are now closed but still on my CR… does that matter (see BofA and SLC Conduit above)? For example, the BofA card was opened in 2004, PIF and closed in 2005, no bad history — but shows on my report “closed at consumers request.” Is this something I should try to remove? Dunno if it’s worth noting that my SLC Conduit accounts (which are closed) are my oldest accounts.Good account stay for 10years or so, if they are good let them show for history.5. My 7 installment loans are from Navient, which has each loan as a separate tradeline. Is it possible (or worth it) to ask them to consolidate it into a single lump-sum loan to bring that 7 down to 1? I feel like in a way it’s helping me because my CR shows I have 21 accounts which is “good” — 7 of them are the Navient loans. If I consolidate, it would bring me down to 15, I think. I’m not familiar with Navient, but any good account would reflect on your history for 10years. So even if you close them it would show. In this case, I say if you can consolidate as much as you can, the better it is.6. I’ve read a lot about people removing old addresses from reports. I have moved several times and all of my reports have 2-3 names (middle initial, full middle name, maiden name, married name, etc) and 4-5 addresses, some of which are dupe addresses (#202 vs Apt 202)… is this something I should get taken care of? If so, do I just contact each CRA and ask them to remove the outdated info? You can try, but I don’t think its that important. They have my address from 20 years ago. Its not effecting your score so I wouldn’t put too much energy in to it for now. One thing tho, to fix this you may have to dispute the info and by doing that, it may take 30 days plus. This could prevent you from opening new disputes as long as you have an open one.7. I notice that on Credit Karma it doesn’t show my current employer. Is that important? NO! It could be a good thing, last thing you want for collection agencies to call up your work, trust meBut the reason is not showing your current employer is because you have not applied for any new credits recently that required employment info. When you get a new CC or a loan then it would list the new info.
I see that you have talked about Credit Karma,consider them as entertainments propose only. They are good for overview of your CR, not for planning your rebuilding process and accuracy of your actual credit file. Just go with what is showing in TU, EQ and EX directly.