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Hey all I am a little late to the party but better late than never. I am about to be 32.
Ok a little about me 2013 was a year a change in my life I lost between 120-140 lbs, divorce was finalized, Hostess (employer went bankrupt so I hoped from contract job to contract job) I finally got permanent employment in December 2013.
2014 will be another year of progress. I made some mistakes in my past currently have a paid judgment and paid tax lien on my credit report that I fear will haunt me until they fall off. I have 2 CO credit cards that will drop off at the end of 2014, a paid collection that will drop off at the end of 2014 and a CO repo'd vehicle that will drop off in a 2.5 years.
My current Fico Score via Scorewatch is 604 as of today.
My goals:
1. Pay all bills on time or early.
2. No more applications for revolving credit.
3. If scores increase enough near the end of the year refinance my vehicle. (Current lendor only reports to Transunion and Experian so likely causing my Equifax to be lower)
4. MyFico of 650
5. MyFico of 675
6. 1k in savings
7. MyFico of 700
Other things worth mentioning I have started my 401k and plan to contribute 3% all year so far I have I plan to increase this to 4% in 2015.
I hope that by participating in this I stay on track as well as learn patience as I can't really do much else until time passes and my current credit lines 6 total most are really new age. My current utilization is 16% on $3800.00 in total available credit.
HI! My husband and I didn't pay a great deal of attention to our credit. Feb 2013, my score was 490, his 520. That was the wake up call we needed for us to begin aggressively correcting our credit. After spending a lot of time contacting creditors, making timely payments, and paying off collections, our scores are FICO scores are between 630 and 670. We hope to purchase our first home this summer! We are in the "re-building" stage - we have no credit card debt, and only have our car and student loans on our cr's, so we need to establish other lines of credit. Our goal for 2014 is to see our score reach the 700's, and finally purchase our first home.
I hope everyone succeeds in making their goal a reality in 2014. I wish you all luck, and hope you do the same for me!
Pointschaser,
May 2013, my credit score was 520. I am a US army veteran, and like you wanted to purchase my first home using my VA loan benefits. I aggressively begin understanding how credit reporting works. How do I established and maintain good credit reporting? Yes it’s true you must your bills in a timely manner. But we all know life sometimes presents unexpected challenges. It can be done I purchase my first home in January of 2014. The VA requirement is 620 score I had a 650 across the board! So from May of 2013 to Dec 2013 when I submitted a contact on my house my scores increase by 130 points. It wasn't easy, now I have more house than my wife and I ever dream we could afford and paying less in mortgage payments than rent. My hope is that you and your family experience the joy of home ownership. If I could offer one piece of advice as a first time buyers go thru a builder they have their own mortgage specialist, you can get unbelievable savings. I close in 21 days.
Question: you stated that your score(s) increased by 130pts just by submitting a contract for a home?
MrBoscoe, I went WOOOOOW too!
MBoscoe,
My apologies, for any confusion my score rose by 130 point from May until Dec by addressing problematic issues on my report while during the process I obtain knowledge on how to improve and maintain my credit score. I am close to applying for credit cards. I want to wait until all of my scores are at least 700. I think when my mortgage is being reported on my credit report I will have achieve my goal.
Hello everyone,
Long time reader, first time poster.
a little background:
In Jan 2005, I bought my first home. Way too much house for me and way too high of a payment for me to maintain. I take full responsibility for that one. Jan 2008, I have some serious medical issues come up that result in me being hospitalized for a week and between all the medical bills, missed work, and expense of maintenance medications, I found myself maxed out on my credit cards and barely making minimum payments on them. In Sept of 2008 my car blew up, I had to buy a new one and with no cash to play with, the only way I saw was credit once again. This was the final straw. In Nov 2008, I surrendered the house to the finance company, stopped paying all the credit cards and basically became a hermit for the last 6 years.
I did have the foresight to keep one credit card, my auto loan, and my bank account (all the same CU) in good standing, never late. Everything else was charged off and has either been paid off or I am in the process of getting them settled. I have 3 collections (2 medical and one from Fingerhut) that I am in the process of PFD on. Still waiting for the response to the first wave of PFD letters.
I have in the last month opened 4 new accounts, Capital 1 (500), Credit 1 (400), Buckle (300) and PayPal SmartConnect (300). Used the shopping cart trick from MyFico for the Buckle card.
My goals:
1. garden the new accounts
2. no more applications until next year
3. work on removing the 3 collections from my reports, all the other bad stuff falls off at the end of the year.
4. get my scores to 700+ on all 3 reports.
5. finally get that AMEX I am wanting so badly.
Any thoughts or suggestions you guys can give me will be most appreciated.
This might seem like a dumb questions (& maybe this is the wrong area to post it), but I was hoping to add the "Fitness Challenge" signature to my profile & I keep getting a message saying I'm posting incorrect HTML. Is there anything else I need to do other than copy the code, change my #s, & paste it into the signature field under my profile?
test
My husband last his job in 2007. Ruined both of our credit. We have been rebuilding ever since. Last year financial outlook was looking great when a creditor reported a repossession on my credit twice as two separate accounts. Dropped my score 90 points. Had it removed but my score has never recovered. Very disheartening since I have worked so hard to pay off all my baddies, and wanted to buy a home. My husbands score dramatically improved and we are under contract for a home, I just won't be on the loan. Recently got approved for several retail cards through shopping cart trick.
Joeyoey,
I got the same message when I pasted the code but finally got it to work. Use the following code:
<hr><img width="50" align="left" height="50" src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/html/assets/challenge.png" border="0"><font size="2"><font size="1">Starting Score:</font> <b>EQ 000 EX 000 TU 000</b> <font size="1">Current Score:</font> <b>EQ 000 EX 000 TU 000</b> <font size="1">Mid Year Goal Score:</font> <b>000</b></font>
<font size="1"> <a href="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Take-the-myFICO-Fitness/Take-the-myFICO-Fitness-Challenge-2014/td-p/...target=_blank">Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge</a></font>