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Congrats!
Hello All,
I am new to this forum and I wish I had found this years ago. Although I'm in the continuing process of cleaning up my credit it would have been great to have this as a tool for times when I found it overwhelming and frustrating. Especially being turned down for apartments and such. For me (as for many others as well) this has been an involved process spanning several years as you can see from my siggy.
My debt to income ratio has been brought down to 28%~30% this year. (Hacking away at bills month after month). And my credit scores have increased from 652 to 698 in December, 698 to 710 in January, then from 710 to 715, and from 715 to 732 in February. Additionally, I brought one of my old Perkins loans down to a $0 balance. This month is looking good at a surprising 748. I've said "no" to store cards for about 5 years now, made payments religiously, I've been stingy with taking on new credit, and I've had 120 day late payments from when I was in college fall off my report. Still looking to hack down the amount of debt I'm carrying though. Today I just got approved for a refinanced auto loan from PenFed for 1.74%. (I hope that's good, definitely better than BOH's 8.9%) and couldn't be more ecstatic. It was a long cry from the times when I was turned down for store cards and Capital One was only extending $500 worth of secured credit to me.
Cheers! Good luck to everyone for this month and beyond.
V/R,
Anna
Check-in for chan35/shanac ( not sure how I created 2 usernames). I joined the challenge in January and have decreased my CC debt to $405!! At the end of the week my reported CC debt will be $54. I have six cards and my CL is $7950.
When I joined the challenge I had two medical CA. One for $534 and the other for $79. The smaller amount was removed from my TU report via a dispute but remain on EX and EQ so today I phoned the CA and paid it. They said they'd remove it from my CR within 30 days. I'll reach out to the other CA on Friday in hopes of a PFD.
I still have a $534 unpaid state tax lien from 2003 to tackle. This is only listed on my EQ report.
And finally, I had a new CA report just yesterday. This just sucks. It's from a 2008 US Cellular account I closed but they're saying they never received my final payment. Ive scoured my records & cant find payment. The balance is $139 and I plan to pay this on Friday also and request a PFD.
I hope to have better news to share for the April check-in. Much success to all!
UPDATE: On 3/25, I phoned the CA for the 2008 US Cellular account and they agreed to remove it from all CRs upon payment. I paid them immediately and they sent me an email confirming our agreement while I was on the phone w/them. I then sent a thank you email and they responded by thanking me for my kind words and that they were appreciated. By far the nicest CA I've ever dealt with!
Hello all,
I started the journey to better credit back in October. I had a foreclosure and had slipped into that trap of thinking not using any credit was good and I didn't pay for anything with credit of any sort for 2 1/2 years. I decided to move from one state to another and realized there would be credit checks for a new apartment. I am so glad I started doing research etc before I went apartment hunting because my score was in the mid 500 range and ya deposit if at all would have been outrageous. So I began researching the web. I found alot alot of info on here and other web sites. First move I got old (fully paid) collection account off. That alone raised me to about 650 which was good enough to no have to pay a deposit for the new apartment.
So I now monitor monthly, and am seeing a steady increase. I still have the foreclosure but that is kinda stuck for another 4 years. I do want to purchase a new car by the end of the year and would like to have all 3 credit bureaus report between 725 and 750 before I begin that process.
Once the old forclosure is gone I would like to own again.
I started working on my credit one month ago today and I've gone from 595 to 609, with a new unsecured card with Victorias Secret with a $350 limit.
I also got a PFD last week on a brand new medical account that wasn't scheduled to come off my report until 2018, so still waiting on that to drop so should see a big jump in about 30 days with that.
Working on NCO, CPA, and a few other medicals. Also working on my husbands credit, have added him as authorized user to my cards with no lates and working to settle and remove an auto repo from 2009. Haven't been tracking his scores but am adding him to my USAA monitoring so I can!
Short term goal: 650, Long term by Dec 2013: 700 CLUB
So far so good in March..
Well, I am new to this site but I've made some great accomplishments in Feb leading into March. I paid off some CCs so that my util went from 88% to 39%. It'll actually be officially 28% once all are updated on my CR! I have seen so far a 50pt gain in my credit score in less than 3 weeks. (And everything isn't even reporting yet!!!) I paid off my auto loan 10 months early. I have 2 CC left to pay on but I'm not sure if I should pay them both to $0. Not sure if that would help to have 0%util? I have never missed a payment and every site I have checked has shown that correctly. And up until now I have always had a balance on my CCs. Not anymore because it is a great feeling to not have that debt. But anywho, I am looking to buy a house preferably within the next 3 months. Previously when I spoke to a LO(4/2012) my issue was my score just wasn't high enough because of my util. Even though I had some medical CO, but they have not reported to the CRAs since 2009-2010. So, that's where I am right now. I think in a few days the other CCs should update and I will get a few more points. I can't wait to pull my report when the Equifax monitoring alerts me to the new balances and a score increase. I think I will be ready.
Oh Also got a CLI on my Fingerhut acct out of the blue which helps my util more!!