February 2016 Check-In Thread

[Kenny]

I know you are all hard at work with your credit goals.  Have you progressed as far as you hoped?  Were there any unforseen expenses that cropped up and may have thrown you off schedule?

As a reminder, participation in these monthly checkins is optional, but encouraged. The goal is to help keep you on track, so feel free to post your progress updates here. This is a no-judge zone; feel free to say what's keeping you up at night or give yourself a kudo for having it all together.

Did you hit any potholes or speedbumps? Achieve some milestones, either small or mighty? Change your goals or add new ones?

Let us know how you're doing! 

(Sorry for the late thread.. will try to do better in March. ) 

[Anonymous]

1 Goal here.

850!

[Epcot]

While I have not been active on the forum, I have been working on my credit. I have paid off all of my credit cards and could not be happier. Now working on not taking on new debt and bringing down the balance on my installment loans, (Two cars and a boat) as well as letting my inquiries age. Those are my goals for 2016!

[OMW2_HighAcheiver]

I'm going to try for this to be my last post. Not coming back until I'm @ at least 700 scores. Hopefully December this year.

Good luck you all in your journeys!!!!!

If I have something substantial to report, I'll return at that point

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! I've got my credit score improved to a 701 right now and was wondering if it's possible to get my APR on my capital one card lower and if it's possible, what should I ask for? 

[Anonymous]

I had a judgement removed all accross the board.  I just had an automatic increase of 300$ on my secured card with capital one and I do not know if I shouldl close that one soon; however, I want to keep it open because that is the one that has the longest history since I started rebuilding. All of my other cards are brand new from Nov-Dec 2015. I am planning on getting 2-3 out of my 5 major baddies pfd. I will send out letters this month. Between March and August I will be asking for EE on half of my student loans, I do not know if that is possible, but I will try. They are due to fall off between Sept. 2016 and Jan 2017. I plan to continue working on lowering my utilization which is currently at 50%, in being realistic I will attempt to bring it down 10%-20% per month until I get it really low. 

[javonnj]

So I fell off last month. 

I made almost $4200 after tax, and managed to save zero dollars. 

From that money $1400 went to food/alcohol due to an ongoing battle with depression. 

The rest of it went to rent, and other expenses which I am still trying to understand how I incurred them. 

The bright side is that I was able to pay off double what my student loan payment was for the month. 

Seeing that number of how much I spent on food/alcohol without contributing to my bills was very sobering. 

I've gotten myself together so far this month though, and looking to staying focused moving forward. 

[Kenny]

Moved some posts over from the January thread since I'm a terrible moderator that didn't remember to make a February! lol

If I forget by March 1st, can someone please report any post in this forum and say we need the March Fitness check-in thread!

Thank you guys!

[Anonymous]

I just joined the challegne but I did attempt to have and old paid off, closed by guarantor deleted of my credit. It hasn't been open in some time but it continues to report so I wrote a letter asking to have it removed. They sent me a letter requesting the old credit card number (which was on the original letter) and a dispute inquiry reason. I'm not sure as to why this was done since everything was included in the original letter but I will be replying with all info and hopefully I'll gain a win and go up a couple of points. My CU is at 2% so I guess It's just a waiting game from here. 

Best of luck everyone!

MG

[ladyjaye82]

---

My goals are:

Garden until June

Pay down credit card balances to below 10%; I'm currently sitting at about 26%

Pay off my car loan before the end of the year (hopefully Oct); Current balance: $12,394.94

After my car is paid off I'll be focusing on saving money and working on my student loans. 

Work with ex-husband to get house refinanced into his name and my name off. 

Increase scores to 650+

---

So the above is from my post in January. Here is my February update:

My CC UTI is down to 1%. I paid off all cards except my Cap1 which I paid down to $100. Unfortunately one card, Cabela's decided to drop my credit limit from $1500 to $1000. In order to protect that from happening again and to hopefully get them to raise my limit I have two recurring payments (MyFICO, Netflix) charging to the card every month and I PIF.

I have started down the big pay-off on my car. I've planned my budget out for the year and I will be making payments twice a month. I should have it paid off by September. Current balance $12,014.37

Trying to create a plan of attack on my student loans. Hoping to get the balance down on them since I'm upside down on those accounts. This will be the debt that's going to haunt me the longest

Not sure where things sit with ex-husband on getting the house re-financed. He has until September to get it done but it appears he is back to paying the mortgage on time which is certainly good. We had a long conversation after he got us both nailed with the 30-day late and he's agreed to let me know if he doesn't think he can make the payment so that I can pay it to save us the credit trouble.

I've seen some good jumps in my scores with some old baddies falling off and bringing my UTI down.

Continue to garden and then hopefully app for a good card from Chase or Citi later this year.