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Checking in for March. My goals are developing right now. My original goals for 2015 were
I've developed a new budget and I've elected to pay an extra $500 per month on my house so that I'll have my the house I purchased in 2014 paid off in 20 years instead of 30.
So I guess my new check in will be: 1) Was credit card utilization below 15% & 2) Did I pay $400 or more extra toward house or What was the extra amount paid toward house.
bdhu2001 -
Have you thought about refinancing your home to a 15-year mortgage? I don't know what your current interest rate is but financing to a 15-year with a lower interest might be the way to go. Just a suggestion.
Well I haven't been checking in monthly but I did want to check in and share my progress, latest FICO scores and plans/goals for upcoming months.
So far I have paid off five of my nine credit cards (I know, outrageous). I will be paying off a personal line of credit by the end of this month and plan to have another credit card paid off by the end of April. Going to keep plugging away and seeing my scores go up!
Checking in for March.
My Feb goal was to keep a UTI between 10-15%...I didn't quite make that due to some balances reporting earlier than I thought and some CLIs reporting later than expected...BUT I wasn't far off from my goal.
My March goal has been and will continue to be sitting still in the garden. I've been watching some great things happen with my scores so that is encouraging.
Started at 600 scores at the beginning on January. We are now in March, and my husbandand I are both at 650-655 credit scores. When we received our tax refund, we were able to pay down the $1500 on our credit cards, so our utilization dropped from around 70% to under 10% which made the biggest increase. We have low limits on our cards (highest is $1500) so even a small charge affects our score. We were abl to refinance our auto loan this last weekend. When we bought it last January, we had 520 scores and got a rate of 14.6%. We were lucky as we bought our 2009 nissan altima under blue book value, so still are ahead on the loan. We were able to refiance at 7.8%, I'm very excited that we were able to cut it in half. It's not great, but I feel accomplished about it. Our next step is gardening for the next few months to let our on-time payments increase and length of credit history as well.
March has been an interesting month.
To start, I had both EQ and TU drop in score after a comment - yes, a COMMENT - was added to a loan I am rehabbing lates on (it's a really weird situation, because the loan is active and paid as agreed, but I still have to do a "rehab" to get a 30/60 day removed). That dropped EQ by 30 points and TU by 18 right at the end of Feb.. CC payments and loan payments gave me back a few points there. EX didn't budge much, but it's my highest score as of today at 690.
The good news came very quickly - I was approved for a new car today (yay!) and then apped this evening for an Amex and got approved for that too. Chase got a 7-10 day message, but I'll at least try a recon and see where that goes. From here on out, we are in the garden.
I may not have much to report until July; at that point those 30/60 day lates will fall off, and a few inquiries from last year will age over 1 year. I still have 1 baddie that needs some TLC - no response to a DV, but I am going to attempt a PFD and see where that takes me. The other couple of baddies will be dropped from my report by the time I leave the garden. So here's to slow and steady progress!
Happy Spring All-
*Checking In*
Received an 11pt. boost (TU & EQ), as a result of bringing my consolidation card (Discover IT) under 85% util. -hazah!-
I am speculating however, since all else has remained the same.
Still in the midst of devinsing a plan I can commit to, but ever excited about the possibilities!
Until next month...
Just got the happy notice that my Equifax score FINALLY improved (I've gone from 'bad' to 'fair'). I have been sticking with my plan of paying off at least one credit card per month. Since January my credit utilization has gone from 98% to 48%. I'm so exicited to see my diligence bearing fruit. I could just kick myself for burying my head in the sand for long believing my situation was hopeless. Barring any unforeseen changes, I shall be debt free (not counting student loans) by Sept of this year.
Decreased UTIL by 5% to 3% total
TU up 1 point
EX up 6 points
EQ up 10 points
Hello MyFico!!
Had a bit more growth! Got an early delete on TU for a CO and associated CA.
Added an AU account with Chase.
Increased a few existing trade lines!
And paid balances I let hit for last month.....