After finding myself in 2009 with a 500-ish credit score I worked to improve it and got it up to mid to high 600s last year, yay! Then in a time of personal upheaval (and, let's be honest, absolute stupidity), I racked up some pretty decent credit card debt and was 30 days late on a car payment, and BAM back to low 600s with me, plus that knocked my husband's score from the low-mid 700s down to the high 600s.
Here's where I stand at the end of 2012:
Loans:
Wells Fargo Mortgage - $172k
Security Service FCU Car Loan - $8.4k, 1 30-day late in 11/12
Cards (limit/balance) (total: $47,400/$13,547)
Chase Mileage Plus Visa - $16,500/$0
Commerce Bank Visa - $12,500/$8,889
Chase Freedom Visa - $6,000/ $3,730
Chase Coldwater Creek Visa - $5,000/$0
Nordstrom Store Card - $4,000/$200
Kohls Store Card - $1,000/$0
Capitol One - $750/$292 - I PIF each month but son in college uses this one for expenses so it never stays at 0 for long
Capitol One - $750/0
Just closed an HSBC card w/0 balance that dropped me from $950 credit limit to $305 credit limit due to the late payment, they can cram it.
Bad Things On My Credit
Equidata (medical) - $252 in collections
Convergent (Sprint, don't know if this is really mine) - $140 in collections
Receivables Management (medical) - $137 in collections
Verizon Wireless (surprise! thanks to my daughter) - $126 P&L showing 0 balance, no CA reporting on it tho
Plus one PIF collection
My goals for 2013:
- Pay off Commerce Bank Visa (4k of this is a BT to pay off a high interest card of my husband's and that will be paid off by April, the rest is mine and should be done by July)
- Pay off Chase Freedom Visa (this is at 0% until 2014)
- Send GW, HIPAA Process, and PFD letters as appropriate to all baddies (letters written & will go out Monday)
- Stay on top of the GW, HIPAA and PFD situations, send letters out biweekly as needed, until I get those Bad Things off my credit!
- Put both loans on auto-pay to avoid EVER having another late payment
- Set up reminders to check that payments are made on time
- Build personal emergency fund from current $500 to minimum $2,000
- Add additional $10/biweekly paycheck to gift/Christmas fund to bring it more in line with actual spending
- After 6-8 months of no lates, try GW Hunting w/Security FCU and see if they'll delete that one late payment
- Stay in the garden for at least the first 6 months of 2013 and possibly longer in order to ...
- GET MY SCORES OVER 700!
Starting Score: 623 EQ 620 EX 613 TU (pulled by mtg lender, 1/7/13)