topic Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014 in Credit Cards

Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2014 13:20:11 GMT

Greetings, fellow credit gardeners! We've got a brand new month upon us. So, I hereby convene the May 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. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I'm going to begin by setting out some Mexican inspired treats: quesadillas, guacamole, tortilla chips, some beef and chicken enchiladas, a seven layer bean dip, and an assortment of taquitos. I'm also setting out some pitchers of sangria and Margaritas. 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!

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. I'd also like to give thanks to Lexie09 for providing hospitality and help to members both old and new. You'll always find comraderie available here as you work towards your gardening goals.

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 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: 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.

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

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" 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">

Palladium:
<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5761iE36E284CEECEA414" 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" />

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

Emerald:

Sapphire:
<img src="http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5627iA714E0C3C98AD3FD" border="0" width="40" height="40" 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 - May 2014

MsLadyRover — Thu, 01 May 2014 13:34:35 GMT

Happy May everyone!!

Day 114 for me in the garden!! Still striving to get my scores in the 700s across the board.

Wishing everyone continued success in their fico journey!!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

BGoneDebt — Thu, 01 May 2014 13:38:27 GMT

Hi,

Seedling here, but I'm looking forward to gardening for the rest of 2014. I feel like I've gotten my life back under control last month having paid off or down almost every TL, wrote GW letters for my bad stretch in 2010, hoping the credit gods will be kind and acknowledge 4 years of perfect payments since. Disputed a few inaccurate accounts I found on my CR and generally went into spring cleaning mode overall.

I don't foresee needing to apply for anything, so I'm happy to sit back, plant and watch all the pretty flowers grow!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

ronstar7 — Thu, 01 May 2014 13:52:26 GMT

Checking in, completely forgot last month lol, stepped out for a new car in March better deal apr went from 18.99% to 4.9% . So last inq was 3/16 and newest TL was 3/30 all for the car. Back in!!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

BigBS — Thu, 01 May 2014 14:00:56 GMT

Checking in. Should be going for 2 months instead of 1, but things happen.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

newmomnewme — Thu, 01 May 2014 14:40:04 GMT

Hi all!! I am supposed to be here for at least 6 more months...Last app was 2/7. I am looking forward to a silver spade in less than a week. I need to spend more time in the garden, a little less in the casino. I have to pay my cc down from a few too many trips. Stay #gardenstrong everyone!!!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

AwwwYeee — Thu, 01 May 2014 14:51:06 GMT

Checking in!! Hopefully I don't get the itch to apply for anything haha

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

sterl1002 — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:07:38 GMT

Good Morning GC!

Checking in, and I've brought extra trowels for folks that need one!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

-NewGuy- — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:11:29 GMT

Morning everyone.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

thelethargicage — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:16:19 GMT

Here I am, watering my seedling.

Got my TU FICO from Discover a few days ago--802. Barclays' FICO updated around the same time--798. Not sure which one I should trust.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

SpaceInvader — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:35:35 GMT

Good morning fellow Gardeners!! Well officially two weeks today in the garden. Everything is well here. Glad to see a few rays of sunlight shine through the clouds.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

starry1 — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:47:43 GMT

Happy May Day everyone! I got a 6 point score bump this morning, the only reason I can figure is I had two more accounts hit the one year mark.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

-NewGuy- — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:53:50 GMT

@starry1 wrote:
Happy May Day everyone! I got a 6 point score bump this morning, the only reason I can figure is I had two more accounts hit the one year mark.

Congrats on the bump!

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

sunshine7157 — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:53:56 GMT

Good Morning! Checking in. Looking forward to my diamond come June. I did get a sp cli in April, but have no intent to persue any more credit for at least another year. All is good. I have everything I need.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

azguy13 — Thu, 01 May 2014 15:54:54 GMT

@starry1 wrote:
Happy May Day everyone! I got a 6 point score bump this morning, the only reason I can figure is I had two more accounts hit the one year mark.

Hey there Starry!

Happy May day to you as well! COngrats on your 6 point bump. I should be getting a nice bump around August when a couple of my cards hit their one year mark (US Bank and Citi) and the INQs associated with said cards no longer effect my score.

I will even take 2 points

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

mongstradamus — Thu, 01 May 2014 16:05:15 GMT

@sunshine7157 wrote:
Good Morning! Checking in. Looking forward to my diamond come June. I did get a sp cli in April, but have no intent to persue any more credit for at least another year. All is good. I have everything I need.

Thats pretty darn good i am trying to hit my nine month in june:-). We will see if I can make it there

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

-Wade- — Thu, 01 May 2014 16:10:01 GMT

Good Morning and Happy May to my friends

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

Anonymous — Thu, 01 May 2014 16:19:41 GMT

Happy birth month to everyone born in May (meeee hehe)!!

The first of the month always throws me off because I go to the previous month gc meeting and the reply button is gone and I'm wondering what in the world's is going on lol

It'll be 4 months that I have been app free on the third. But because of the accidental ge hp I won't be hp free for four months until the 17th. Still waiting to hear back from ge. I actually ccd the CEO of finance there lol so we'll see how that goes.

This month my focus is bringing util down, sending out the OCCU GW letter and celebrating my birthday with some nice clis hehe since my ge 8th statements will cut this week.

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

mongstradamus — Thu, 01 May 2014 16:22:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Happy birth month to everyone born in May (meeee hehe)!!

The first of the month always throws me off because I go to the previous month gc meeting and the reply button is gone and I'm wondering what in the world's is going on lol

It'll be 4 months that I have been app free on the third. But because of the accidental ge hp I won't be hp free for four months until the 17th. Still waiting to hear back from ge. I actually ccd the CEO of finance there lol so we'll see how that goes.

This month my focus is bringing util down, sending out the OCCU GW letter and celebrating my birthday with some nice clis hehe since my ge 8th statements will cut this week.

I am hoping this month I will finally get that discover sp cli I have been waiting so long for :-) If i don't get that i hope to receive an few score bumps on either eq or TU

Re: Garden Club Meeting - May 2014

-Wade- — Thu, 01 May 2014 16:35:17 GMT

@starry1 wrote:
Happy May Day everyone! I got a 6 point score bump this morning, the only reason I can figure is I had two more accounts hit the one year mark.

Congrats on your score increase