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

Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

09Lexie — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 00:55:45 GMT

Welcome, fellow credit gardeners! I'm taking over hosting duties while Tinuviel is out of town - as soon as she returns it's all hers!

As this is the last month of the year, lets use this month as a reflection of 2013's credit goals. Were you successful, anything you regret and plans for the New Year. So, I call this meeting to order and will gladly pass the gavel to my friend upon her return.

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. As always, there is a snack table set up. This month we have an appetizer selection consisting of puffed pastries, mini crab cakes, assortment of warm breads, sweet potato spinach stuffed triangles, and as always, an assortment of mini-quichese. For your beverages, you may choose from hot apple cider, gingerbread and pumpkin lattes.. 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!

Our club features a Friday night social. This will be hosted by myjourney, who has done such a wonderful job with managing the buffet and bar. He will present a mouthwatering dinner menu (with graphics!) and announce a discussion topic. Everyone is welcome to hang out and either discuss the topic or anything else that comes to mind. Feel free to let 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.

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.

*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: Employment Applications, Apartment Rentals, Utilities and other such services. These are not considered to be applications for credit per se.

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.

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" border="0" width="50" height="67" align="right">

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

SIlver:
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/Gfc4B.png" border="0" width="40" height="40" align="right">

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

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

Diamond:
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/40nIa.png" border="0" alt="" title="" 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!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:08:27 GMT

YAY!!!!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

myjourney — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:08:45 GMT

I'm in for December Wooo Hooo

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Stonemanmv — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:09:39 GMT

I'm here too

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

myjourney — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:10:55 GMT

@ irisa welcome home how was the cruise?

We missed you

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Irisa — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:12:41 GMT

Checking in for December now.. One month away from Gold!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:16:02 GMT

finally on the first page!!!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

FocusedAndDetermined — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:16:12 GMT

@Irisa wrote:
Checking in for December now.. One month away from Gold!

Welcome back!! How was the cruise?

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

coldnmn — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:16:28 GMT

@Irisa wrote:
Checking in for December now.. One month away from Gold!

Glad to see you retuned safe and sound Irisa!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

lexandra90 — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:17:11 GMT

yayyyyy! count me in, checking in for december, getting my bronze spade on

Good luck everyone!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

FocusedAndDetermined — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:17:22 GMT

I'm in for December.

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Gunnar419 — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:18:50 GMT

I was gold until late last month. Now I'm a seedling again. But it's been a big year. Have achieved too many credit goals to mention: new tradelines, big CLIs, a better selection of cards, scores above 760 and more. Now it's time to plant myself and my cards in the garden.

Goal for next year: get my score in the 780-790 range just by gardening and keeping util low. (Maybe even get the score touching 800, but the thought of that scares me!)

Thanks, Lexie! Thanks all. MyFico is a big help, but also a place of big temptations.

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

coldnmn — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:19:41 GMT

@Stonemanmv wrote:
I'm here too

I had both games recorded to my DVR! I feel asleep and the recording quit before the end of the Vikings Bears game overtime!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:22:41 GMT

After applying for an AMEX CC and getting approved I have reset my time in the garden. So I'm still in the "seedling," stage but I do have to say I am quite happy with my line up of cards right now. And before the year ends I'll have a bronze spade!

For the next year, I plan on maximizing my rewards and hopefully get at least one or two free flights with points/cash back earned since I do plan on traveling at least 2 or 3 times, possibly more. Also, I plan on improving and maintaining good credit so I can get a car loan at a great rate in 2015. If everything goes right 2014 will be a great year credit wise.

Happy gardening to all!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Revelate — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:23:57 GMT

Ah so many things around the start of the new year credit wise for me!

2013 was a year of getting righteous with the IRS and qualifying for a mortgage: I did manage to get the elephant resolved but still working through a couple of smaller issues which'll be finished out in December, so that's on track; however, the mortgage went nowhere this year.

Was hoping to get to 680 on my EQ '04 score from a mortgage underwriting perspective, that didn't happen as I seem to be stuck at 670; however, on the plus side Dec/Jan/Feb is celebration for my gardening as:

- My derogatories turn 3 years old (Dec)

- My initial positive tradelines turn two years old (12/29/13)

- My two year forum anniversary! (12/30/13)

- My most recent inquiries all turn one year old (1/13/14)

- My AAoA turns 2 in February.

Plan is still the same as it is every gardening update for me: ~~try to take over the world!~~ Oops, get mortgage qualified that is! Probably in the Jun-Oct timeframe, after that will be some random couple of cards or two, may start working business credit actually.

Debating pulling my annual scores till 1/15 in light of my inquiries falling out of scorable range rather than New Years as I typically do, guess depends how hungover I'm feeling that morning .

Hope everyone had a great start to their holiday season, and may your gardening wishes come true as the holidays continue!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Stonemanmv — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:24:28 GMT

Cold. I always add 1 hr to my recording. I like to wait 45 min then watch so I can blow through the commercials

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

FocusedAndDetermined — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:24:29 GMT

@Gunnar419 wrote:
I was gold until late last month. Now I'm a seedling again. But it's been a big year. Have achieved too many credit goals to mention: new tradelines, big CLIs, a better selection of cards, scores above 760 and more. Now it's time to plant myself and my cards in the garden.

Goal for next year: get my score in the 780-790 range just by gardening and keeping util low. (Maybe even get the score touching 800, but the thought of that scares me!)

Thanks, Lexie! Thanks all. MyFico is a big help, but also a place of big temptations.

Yes, you did have a good year. Congrats on all your successes!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

coldnmn — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:27:14 GMT

@Stonemanmv wrote:
Cold. I always add 1 hr to my recording. I like to wait 45 min then watch so I can blow through the commercials

I did on your game!

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Gunnar419 — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:28:04 GMT

@FocusedAndDetermined wrote:
@Gunnar419 wrote:
I was gold until late last month. Now I'm a seedling again. But it's been a big year. Have achieved too many credit goals to mention: new tradelines, big CLIs, a better selection of cards, scores above 760 and more. Now it's time to plant myself and my cards in the garden.

Goal for next year: get my score in the 780-790 range just by gardening and keeping util low. (Maybe even get the score touching 800, but the thought of that scares me!)

Thanks, Lexie! Thanks all. MyFico is a big help, but also a place of big temptations.

Yes, you did have a good year. Congrats on all your successes!

Thanks, FocusedAndDetermined! MyFicoans are the best!

Now, if I could only get that seedling to poke it's little head up in my signature. You'd think I'd be good at that part by now.

Re: Garden Club Meeting -December 2013

Stonemanmv — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:29:43 GMT

But you were sleeping? That's why I won whew!! ( close one)