topic Re: Garden Club - August 2015 in Credit Cards

Garden Club - August 2015

gdale6 — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:28:51 GMT

Welcome, Garden Clubbers!

What is gardening? Quite simply, it involves refraining from applying for new credit or seeking CLIs that require hard pulls. Soft pulls CLIs, however, are not only acceptable, but are encouraged. The idea is to allow one's current TLs to grow and mature, waiting for inq's to age or fall off, and possibly waiting for "baddies" to be removed or age off. During this time, one tends to one's current accounts and watches their AAoA grow and the new credit ding fade. Here we socialize, commiserate and support each other while waiting for baddies to fall off, new accounts and/or inq's age or just want a place to hang out to get away from the hustle and bustle of credit card talk.

So, if you're at the stage of your credit journey where you're ready to enter the garden, please come and join us. You may pick up your complimentary watering can and garden gloves by the front door -- you can even choose your favorite color! We're proud to offer a well appointed clubhouse. There is a snack table set up.

Help yourself to our drinks and appetizers. Flat-breads, sliders, pizza, buffalo wings, grilled zucchini, kale salads, pecan and apple pie Ala mode. There's also a nice selection of cold beers. Once again, please feel free to bring anything you'd like to add to the festivities. And, in the corner diagonally across from the front door, there is a fully stocked bar, along with a wide selection of soft drinks. If needed, there are some anti-itch medications stocked in our supply cabinet near the door -- Lanacaine, Benadryl, etc. If you need to place your reports in the deep freeze, we also have a freezer, located next to the bar, so go ahead and throw your reports in!

Our club features a Friday night social. This will now be hosted by Yes-Its-Me who has recently assumed the role from Irish80 who had done a wonderful job with managing the buffet and bar. Everyone is welcome to hang out and either discuss the topic of choice or anything else that comes to mind. Feel free to kick up your heels for the evening! The goal of the Friday night social is to enjoy getting to know each other and share in some fun. You'll always find camaraderie available here as you work towards your gardening goals. Thanks to Irish80 and myjourney both for contributing to this in the past.

So come on in and make yourself comfortable. Make a gardening plan and commit to sticking with it! Are you planning to wait six months before applying for additional credit? A year? Until the last of your baddies drop off? Whatever your goal, we're here to support you. If you feel the "app-itch" coming on, let us know and we'll try to help you through it. We even have and Emergency Response Team (ERT) available to step in and help keep you on track!

Now, if you happen to leave the garden prematurely, that's your decision and we respect that. You are always welcome to come back, pick up your gardening tools and start over again. But please, celebrate any approvals and the discussion of which credit card to app for on another thread. While we are happy with members’ success stories, we really do want to keep this threads focus and tone to be consistent with gardening efforts. You are certainly welcome to celebrate soft CLIs on this thread, though, as they do not involve inq's or apps for new credit.

GARDEN CLUB CHALLENGE AND RECOGNITIONS:
Garden Club Challenge: Pick a firm date for staying in the garden and post it in your siggy!
Garden Club recognition levels: To qualify, your reports must contain:
No new tradelines of any type on one's accounts (this includes any backdated account, as they are STILL new "seedlings").
No HPs for anything that would allow for the possibility of a new tradeline being issued or increasing the CL of an existing tradeline.

*The Garden Club community recognizes that certain inquiries are necessary for factors beyond those listed above. Therefore, Hard Pulls/Inquiries for the following bona fide reasons are exempt but not limited to: Opening checking/savings accounts (so long as no line of credit is being opened in addition to these accounts), Employment Applications, Apartment Rentals, Utilities and other such services. These are not considered to be applications for credit per se. Also, for those who are seeking a new mortgage or refinancing an existing one, we understand that your lender will pull your CRs multiple times before closing. For those GC'ers, the first hp will set your clock, not the subsequent pulls. However, if you are simply rate shopping, then the normal hp rules apply.

You will be able to add the following to your siggy if you have been abiding by the above for the following time periods...

Less than 1 month - seedling
1 month - bronze spade
3 months - silver spade
6 months - gold spade
9 months - palladium spade
12 months - platinum spade
15 months - ruby spade
18 months - emerald spade
21 months - sapphire spade
24 months or more - diamond spade

Please note: recognition levels reset once you add an account or incur a HP. We recognize that there may be very good reasons for "leaving the garden," and we respect whatever thoughtful decisions members make. As stated previously, members are always welcome to come back, grab their gloves and start gardening once more.

To ensure that your graphic comes out properly on your siggy, please be certain that it has been added as the very first line of code.

Seedling:

<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/2760iB9166C1A493A3CBC" title="Seedling Garden Club Member" border="0" width="50" height="67" align="right">

Bronze:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/LEYWe.png" border="0" title="Bronze Garden Club Member" width="40" height="40" align="right">

SIlver:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/Gfc4B.png" border="0" title="Silver Garden Club Member" width="40" height="40" align="right">

Gold:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/24xvV.png" border="0" title="Gold Garden Club Member" width="40" height="40" align="right">

Palladium:

<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5761iE36E284CEECEA414" title="Palladium Garden Club Member" border="0" width="40" height="40" align="right">

Platinum:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/vVRv5.png" border="0" alt="" title="Platinum Garden Club Member" width="120" height="80" align="right" />

Ruby:

<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5625i09098E9833D7A4B2" border="0" title="Ruby Garden Club Member" width="40" height="40" align="right">

Emerald:

<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5623i698C4BF1F9D77284" border="0" width="40" title="Emerald Garden Club Member" height="40" align="right">

Sapphire:

<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5627iA714E0C3C98AD3FD" border="0" width="40" title="Sapphire Garden Club Member" height="40" align="right">

Diamond:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/40nIa.png" border="0" alt="" title="Diamond Garden Club Member" width="40" height="40" align="right" />

So, please feel free to come on in and share your gardening progress. If you're new or returning, what are your goals? If you've been here for a while, how are things going? Let's all mingle, and support each other in our respective gardening efforts!

Just a reminder, if you are new to the forum chances are you will not be able to add your seedling to your profile. Send any mod a PM and we'll add it for you You can also report any post inappropriate in the GC and just state that you need __________ spade. (Be that seedling, bronze, etc.)

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:30:55 GMT

#1 again, HA!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Saleen099 — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:32:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
#1 again, HA!

HAHA

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:33:45 GMT

GOOOOOOOOD MORNING!

It's August. I'm going grocery shopping today!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:34:13 GMT

Consider me a lifetime gardener as of last night. Have every card I wanted and now I also have a new car so thats it for me! No reason for anymore HP's unless I purchase a home and if so that would be many years from now.
Garden Strong folks

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:50:03 GMT

Checking in. Congrats HF, didn't see your car stuff yet, will go look for the details. Can NOT believe it's August!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:54:47 GMT

It's a new calendar month it sure feels good because I started in July… even though it was less than 5 days ago Lol. I'm going to hit the 3 month mark on some spree store accounts in the coming week, and two 4's. We shall see how that goes if any increases.

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:02:20 GMT

Happy August! In the garden since July 24th and plan to be there until we apply for a home equity loan early next year!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

tiger_uppercut — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:04:38 GMT

I woke up this morning to this TU score, the result of EE on 7 baddies (3 more to go):

I could literally cry. It's been such a long, hard road for the last 6+ years, and I can finally see the light! The other two scores still stink, but I'm in the final 6 months! My utilization is up a bit this month, too, thanks to a vacation. So looking forward to dropping that down and gaining a few points.

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

OmarGB9 — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:16:19 GMT

New month! New thread!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

laurenjessica — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:27:27 GMT

New month! Still here and checking in for August. Get my spade on the 15th

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Kidcat — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:52:09 GMT

Happy August 1...2 months in the garden, and Happy Birthday to me

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Ravensfan2001 — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 17:56:54 GMT

Checking in for at least the next 2 years... Got all the cards I need, and then some. Realized that I overdid it, so I need to just chill. Cheers, fellow gardeners!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

icyhot — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:02:23 GMT

I'm officially gardening this month. Gonna put a freeze on my bureaus. Every other card I want I can PC a current card to

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

sparklerd34 — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:29:09 GMT

Happy August and happy Saturday such a rainy day here in Tampa FL. Still gardening for my short term goals and long term goals. Only want better scores and low Balances on all cards and most of all more savings. Longer term goal is to purchase a car within the next year or 2 and a condo or town home. Hope everyone has a successful August!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:34:11 GMT

I got my bronze spade back today. This time I'm really not leaving the garden until I earn at least a gold spade!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:36:24 GMT

I am waiting on the next big series of churnable bonuses.

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:44:46 GMT

@Sladyesq wrote:
Happy August 1...2 months in the garden, and Happy Birthday to me

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

sparklerd34 — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:46:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Consider me a lifetime gardener as of last night. Have every card I wanted and now I also have a new car so thats it for me! No reason for anymore HP's unless I purchase a home and if so that would be many years from now.
Garden Strong folks

Congrats on the Car!!

Re: Garden Club - August 2015

mwlcolorado — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 18:52:26 GMT

Well, I'm still here...but I think I need to take a break from the site for awhile! I keep up on the credit card/auto loan sections and am starting to get the itch to app. I want to buy a car when I get back from this deployment so that is what I've been gardening for. I'll probably mingle in some credit card apps in there(helllllloooo CSP) since I've had my eye on that one for awhile. Currently, my highest limit is with Wells Fargo at $7k (that was my starting limit when I got the card last august.) I have a Lowe's card with a $12k limit but really want a Visa Signature card with $10k+. I'm trying to get that in the CSP for I can focus my efforts more on one card and weed out some of the junk/building cards I have that have never done anything for me. Oh, on a positive note, I did partially hit my goal of the 800 club! My TU Auto and Bank score are in the 800s and my EQ Auto/Bank scores are knocking at that door(790s.) Here's to another month!