Tips to bump up score little bit

[Anonymous]

shoot they said it's too late for today

[Anonymous]

Is the $25 purchase something that you actually want or need?  I hate the idea of you buying something you don't really need.

And this is a purchase you are thinking about making tonight on your First Premier?

[Anonymous]

It was but I just called them again and they said everything's already gone to the CB.

 I am just going to wait and see what happens.

[Anonymous]

OK, so it sounds like for your First Premier, there's a chance it might report to the CRAs with $26, but you won't know for sure for another five days or so.  Yes?

[Anonymous]

Yes, it's actually $26 + $45 (this explains why $629 available credit)

They have a $14.00 servicing fee they said I paid this month already.

Let's just hope something reports and it's under 10%.

They said the transactions are 'pending' but the bureaus will report something because the balance of the available credit will be $629 and not $700.

I'm hoping something reports.

Well, I'm getting an education.

[Anonymous]

Where is the $45 coming from?

[Anonymous]

My spouse on his business trip in the airport. It helps when I am told these things!!!

Thank god I didn't just charge more.

UTI is like gibberish to people that don't get it. ("What do you mean I can't charge $45???")  I am just learning. But I politely explained it!

Hello!

Who would've thunk it that I'd be biting my nails over this.

I'm nervous because MyFico always gives me a red alert when I have even the slightest balance increase.

I'll see what happens tomorrow!

[Anonymous]

OK.  So with the First Premier, you might be reporting $0 or as high as $71.  $71 is really ok, def far better than both cards zero.  (Even though I said to try to aim for < 9% of the card's CL.)  The ideal goal would be a total of 4-11 dollars reporting on exactly one card.  (That's at least $4 and < 1% of your total credit limit.)

So your things to do as far as credit cards are as follows:

(1)  Make sure that neither card is used for the next week.  Use debit cards or cash instead.

(2)  Find out how much the FP card reported for.  You will not be able to tell for at least 4-5 days.  Do you have a credit monitoring service where you can pull credit reports for free?  Credit Karma is a good choice for that.

(3)  If your FP reports a positive balance, pay it in full and then charge another $10 or so on it.  Your FP should then be the card going forward that you use for reporting the positive balance on.  Be certain that you always have a positive balance on that card and be certain that the other card always has a ZERO balance.

(4)  If you discover that your FP reported a zero balance, then make sure you pay off anything else on it.  Keep it at $0 for the next few months.  Immediately go and charge something on the other card (Credit1).  Now the Credit1 has become the card you will use to report your positive balance.  Always let it report a positive balance, then pay it off after it reports, then charge something small again.

When I say "always" that means for the next three or four months.  Until you get your mortgage issue resolved.  Then you should check back in and people here can give you advice about how to do some more good things, a few better cards, some other long term behavior changes, etc.

Aside from your credit cards, be sure to work on getting as many of your derogs removed as you can.  That will help a lot.  Good luck, pal.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! That makes total sense. Why didn't I think of switching to Credit1 for the balance if the other is at 0! It seems so obvious but I just did not even think of that.

Thank you.

I have Equifax Family Plan and CreditKarma -- so I will check those to see.

Thanks again! This is really super helpful!

[Anonymous]

UPDATE:

So I went to iQualifier because I think our TU score might be our middle score.

For some reason the lender pulled middle, EQ dropped to our lowest.

Today, I notice both FP reported a balance: $14.00 and Credit1 reported $8.00 argh! (They don't usually report until the end of the month).

But iQualifer has a great simulator.

Guess what it's saying has a huge impact on our score? Our FORMER LO (a bozo) pulled a credit report 2 months after the first without telling me! I got an alert from MyFico and he said "oh that won't impact you at all."

Guess what? According to iQualifying Simulator it could give us a pretty big bump if it wasn't on there.

Steamed

I emailed him and politely asked him if he could remove it since I had no idea, he didn't ask, didn't tell me, and then after said it would have no impact even though I told him it showed up as a hard pull. We probably signed something giving permission to pull but did NOT think he would just randomly do it without telling us. Anyway, we've moved on to a better LO!

Also, that erroneous Cap1 reporting I closed. It seemed to really like me closing it! The close hasn't reported yet but I'm hoping when it reports it will bump.

I got a notice that someone changed our address! ??? Not me. They put a space in the middle of our street name. For example, instead of Orchard Lane it says Orch ard.

THIS GAVE US A 4-7 PT INCREASE.

I guess i'll take it!