topic Re: How am I doing with the rebuild in Bankruptcy

How am I doing with the rebuild

jason0618 — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 23:41:28 GMT

I just wanted to make sure I'm following along correctly to rebuild after my chapter 7 discharge. I was discharged in October, 2024.
Immeditely, I got mission lane with $1,500 limit with no fee.
about a month later, I applied for Sparrow card ($500 limit and a $59 fee) and a cerulean card ($750 limit and $125 fee) Saje day, i apped for Toyota visa and was declined. Those are the only inquiries on my credit.

the fees aren't ideal, but my plan is to use all three cards and then close sparrow and cerulean right at the one year mark. Mission lane I will likely keep. I included discover and capital one in the bk, so hopefully after a year, they'll forgive me.
i have a credit builder loan from my credit union for $1,000 also.
score is currently sitting at 618 with the free myFICO account. Idk what my other scores are, but does this seem about right for being a few months out?

No car payment either.

Re: How am I doing with the rebuild

FicoMike0 — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 03:20:48 GMT

Three cards is good. You want to do azeo. Make sure you understand that utilization is based on reported balance. You need to manage your statement balances, yes, it's a pain.

At some point, you should try to replace the fee cards. Capone is known to be forgiving and has preapproval with no hard pull. Try them every month, no penalty.

I don't know how well credit builder loans work. Ideally, you want an installment loan paid to 9% or less. A ssl from penfed or nfcu works. I did penfed, anyone can join. I got 30-40 points, I went for seven years. It's costing me about $4 a year. Look it up, if you re interested, just post and we'll explain it.

Re: How am I doing with the rebuild

CaneVariant — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 03:59:12 GMT

I think you are doing great so far. I am about 6 months ahead of you in BK (discharged Mar 2024) and Mission Lane was also my first card out of BK. I also got a Ally card off of Credit Karma that I will probably close. I also went the SSL like FicoMike but with Navy Fed. IME you will see a lot of negative posts about Mission Lane especially on reddit. However, I have had no issues with them. I used it as my daily driver (~$2000 ((3000 cl) and was rewarded with a CLI to $4k right at 6 months. At 1 year filing (December 2024) I used the C1 pre-qualifying tool and was denied. (I burned C1 for about $1k but Discover for ~$50k). Since there are many DP's that C1 is more forgiving at 13 months post filing I hit the pre-qual again in January and was BLOWN AWAY! C1 let me back in with a better card and limit than I had before. tldr: rock the Mission Lane card as hard as you can and let time do it's thing.

Re: How am I doing with the rebuild

jason0618 — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 17:30:35 GMT

Wanted to come back and update this post since it's been another 6 months.

my Mission Lane card increased me from $1,500 to $2,000 right at six months.

sparrow is still here, still at $0 balance with 9 months of reporting and still stuck at $500 limit. I'll probably close it in a couple of months when it hits 11 months to avoid af of $59.

capital one I've got the quicksilver with a crappy $300 limit. I use it for a lot of daily purchases. Pif every Friday.
I also prequalified and got a venture card but I've not used it at all.

then in April, I had some car problems and decided to buy a used car. Went with a 2020 dodge grand caravan, financed with credit acceptance. For all the negative reviews, I've had no complaints at all with them. I financed about $12,000 and I've paid it down to $7800 now. Paid on time, and there's been no issues. I'd like to lease a new car once I get to a year.
score is hovering between 640-650