topic Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013 in Credit Cards

Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:09:33 GMT

Greetings, fellow credit gardeners! The new month begins tomorrow, but I usually like to start the night before the first of the month, as I'm not much of a morning person and as we recently learned on another thread, it's best not to do anything before coffee. And so, I hereby convene the March meeting of the myFICO Garden Club.

For those who are new to the concept of gardening, 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 inqs 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.

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. This month we'll continue with the hot buffalo wings and sweet sesame wings. I'll be adding to that some cheese quesadillas, seven layer dip and chips, jalapeno poppers, hot meatballs and deviled eggs. And as always, we have mini-quiches (enjoy, Relevate!). There's also a nice selection of cold beers. Once again, please feel free to bring and add anything that 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, Benedryl, 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!

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.

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 on another thread. While we are happy with members’ success stories, we really do want to keep this thread’s 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 inqs 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 backdated Amex accounts, 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.

You will be able to add the following to your siggy if you have abided 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

12 months - platinum 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.

Seedling:

Bronze:

SIlver:

line to put at top of sig:

Gold:

line to put at top of sig:

Platinum:

line to put at top of sig:

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

Diamond:

line to put at top of sig:

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!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

armbenderc — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:17:45 GMT

Still in it..

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

bluesnowman — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:19:17 GMT

Hi Guys,

So I'm back in the garden again for this month. Got upgraded last sunday to a silver spade and planning to stay in gardening mode until the first week of June. Then buy my scores and if everything looks good, I am going to go for the BCE and Freedom like I have been posting for the last few months. If the BCE is not approved, then I'll go for the Gold Delta and ask them to PC it for me. I am also considering a Chevron card from GE, but I'm on the fence about that one right now. Other then that, you guys are amazing on this forum and keeping me from apping for cards I don't need. I am also planning to open an IRA one of these months and start funding it with small amounts. Other then a few more months in the garden and apping, I dont need anymore credit for now or until my income gets better. I gotta keep applying that anti-itch cream. And thank you for the snacks! I love dip...lol.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

tcbofade — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:19:19 GMT

Me too, me too!

Hoping for a score increase tomorrow!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Swapmeet — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:21:50 GMT

@bluesnowman wrote:
Hi Guys,

So I'm back in the garden again for this month. Got upgraded last sunday to a silver spade and planning to stay in gardening mode until the first week of June. Then buy my scores and if everything looks good, I am going to go for the BCE and Freedom like I have been posting for the last few months. If the BCE is not approved, then I'll go for the Gold Delta and ask them to PC it for me. I am also considering a Chevron card from GE, but I'm on the fence about that one right now. Other then that, you guys are amazing on this forum and keeping me from apping for cards I don't need. I am also planning to open an IRA one of these months and start funding it with small amounts. Other then a few more months in the garden and apping, I dont need anymore credit for now or until my income gets better. I gotta keep applying that anti-itch cream. And thank you for the snacks! I love dip...lol.

Unfortunately, they will not PC the Gold to a BCE, I already tried.

On another note, in just a few short days it's the bronze spade for me.....

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

bluesnowman — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:30:50 GMT

Aww man, I thought they allowed it, or at least I heard they allowed it. Can you apply for any card and then PC it to the BCE other then the Delta? for charge cards, I know if you wanted to downgrade or upgrade between charge cards they let you. But good to know, thank you!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:33:18 GMT

I gained and then lost my gold spade this week, but it was the right decision for me. I picked up a Chase Freedom this week, and that finishes out my credit card portfolio. I would have apped for it last August, but I truly believed that there was a good chance that I was blacklisted due to an old Providian account that went bad. I finally got up the courage to try for it (courage, or was it the pain meds from my dental surgery?) and found out that I was mistaken! So, a new little seedling to tend! One of the things that I'm really happy about is that they gave me a 12.99% APR, after a 0% intro rate for 15 months. These are the best terms available on this card, and I've never been offered best terms before! A new milestone!!!

At one point I had been considering an Amex BCE, but it really doesn't have a place in my garden, aside from backdating. But my AAoA is respectable even without it, so there really is no need. Most of my grocery shopping is done at a Walmart Supercenter because of proximity and price, but Amex doesn't consider it to be a supermarket, so the 3% cashback wouldn't apply. I'm happy with my BoA for gas/groceries, so no need for a BCE. Thus with the addition of the Freedom, which is a good compliment to Discover for the rotating categories, my garden is complete.

Since I've pushed my new car shopping back until Fall, I'm planning on another 6 month stint in the garden. Time to sit back, partake of some refreshments and enjoy the view!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

starry1 — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:44:36 GMT

So this will be my first official stint in the garden. My discharge came through on 2/15 and I have obtained two starter cards (FP and Fingerhut). I plan to hang out about 3 months or so and then app with NFCU and/or Cap1. Looking forward to watching my scores grow. They will grow, right?

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

LS2982 — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:56:29 GMT

I am here and enjoying my planned year long stay as I have a goal of paying down my christmas/splurging debt.

Felt good to PIF my PSECU PSL loan ($1400) that was making 10% interest. Now its time to tackle my PSECU Visa card of about 6K in debt. All the while im doing this my accounts are aging and my GE accounts got some awesome luv!!

Looking forward to posting updates and staying in here for my platinum spade!!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 23:58:46 GMT

in 2 days ill be 3 months inquiry free. I racked up so many inqs from feb=april last year, so right now i am reaching the lowest number of 1yr inqs i've had since summer 2012.

This month ill be crossing the 1 year mark with 2 INQ on Experian, leaving me with 3 in the last 12 months. For equifax i'll lose 3, leaving with me with 4 in the last 12 months. And with Transunion ill be losing 2, leaving me with 5 in the last 12 months.

Also I guess since fico counts the first of the month for aging, my Discover turns 1 year tomorrow, so for the first time i will have more accounts over 1 year than under 1 year lol. My equifax calls my 10.55555 AAOA 11 months, so tomorrow i can kinda say i have a 1 year AAoA(11.55555) too. I'm still another 3 months away9(june) from any real changes though since that is when my youngest, US BANK, goes over 6 months.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Gunnar419 — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:08:09 GMT

Greetings, fellow gardeners.

I hope to earn my broze spade at mid-month. Last month I apped for and got a Walmart Discover and an Amex BCE. I also knocked my utilization down from 32% to 14% and now to 8%. My scores went from low-mid 700s to high-mid 700s. Now to sit in that lawn chair in the garden and watch those AAoAs grow.

Hoping to stay in the garden until at least August, or better yet next February. Only 11-1/2 months to go!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

MYBEST — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:20:45 GMT

Hi everyone! I'am still hanging in there

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Swapmeet — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:26:23 GMT

@bluesnowman wrote:
Aww man, I thought they allowed it, or at least I heard they allowed it. Can you apply for any card and then PC it to the BCE other then the Delta? for charge cards, I know if you wanted to downgrade or upgrade between charge cards they let you. But good to know, thank you!

You can PC through the same card grouping, according to the CSR; e.g. get a card in the blue group (blue, blue cash, BCE, or BCP) and you can PC to any other blue card...etc.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

InvincibleSummer3 — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:29:14 GMT

I'm back, rising like a phoenix from the ashes after I got locked out of my old account. (Bye bye, IS2, and hello IS3....still me, despite my password problems!)

I am newly Golden as of February. Still gardening my little patio garden of two secured cards, BUT one of them is an Orchard card that is unsecuring. So this is my first unsecured card in close to 12 years. Score is moving in the right direction, although not as fast as I'd like but meh, what can you do. Rebuilding is going well too. A big tax return helped me with some PFD's, so I'm feeling pretty good.

It's not a fast process, but I'm up close to 150 points since June 2012 when I started. I'm ready for Spring, and can't wait to see how things will bloom.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Swapmeet — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:30:33 GMT

@ Tinuviel,

Welcome back to seedling status. It's not like I was in the garden... But the card that put me here was the freedom. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the sweet smell of freedom bro!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Sevenfeet — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:46:03 GMT

I'm officially in the garden after being unofficially in for 49 months (can you count the time you weren't a member of myFico? ) Then I went on the app spree of my life and after successfully getting five new cards, 1 CLI on a new card and 2 CLIs on old cards, I am done for the time being. I'll stick around for six months (Labor Day) when it will be time for some CLIs.

Discover, US Bank and Amex BCP, you'll be on notice then!

Actually, I can do the BCP in just 61 days. Well, I guess my time in the garden for Spring will be short!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

the_jan_b — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:45:05 GMT

Still in the club...holding my purple watering can and gloves, and enjoying the company and good food...

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Simply827 — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:48:33 GMT

Hi I'm new. I haven't had an app since 10/2011. Do I have to start at seedling or can I go to whatever level corresponds to that time? Thanks.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

myjourney — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:52:23 GMT

Mark me as in attendance and hello my fellow gardeners

Re: Garden Club Meeting - March 2013

Swapmeet — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:53:36 GMT

I'd say go for the gold. Just because you didn't know you were in the garden does not mean that you weren't in the garden. I am no authority by any means, and this is my first time in the garden, so take my advice FWIW -- not much in this instance...lol.