topic Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit? in General Credit Topics

3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 12:31:42 GMT

My current credit scores are low at the 550 range.

I am trying to get my credit score up to 720. While I'm in the middle of removals and disputes, I want to use secure lines of credit to get good karma on my report.

Should I keep the 1 Secured card with $1225 limit alone or should I get another 2 secure cards with $300 limits?

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

takeshi74 — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 13:13:36 GMT

Let's start with the general recommendations:

At least 2-3 cards are suggested for scoring purposes.
To optimize utilization allow only one balance to report (others at zero) with 10% or less utilization.

To meet either of those you'd need more than one card.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:05:41 GMT

okay.. and are their any particular Banks/Creditors that give the most boost?

I just want to maximize as much as possible.

I've opened with US Bank because they Cater to Tesla Buyers. Should i find 2 other banks that do the same?

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Duke84 — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:25:50 GMT

I would look to Capital One and a credit union if you'd like additional secured cards. The Cap1 secured can be obtained for as low as a $49 deposit for a $200 limit and the credit union will provide a limit and you need that same amount as a deposit.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:36:15 GMT

Gotcha.. I will open a capital one..

Also, why is only charging 10% the key to success in this. So for example.. I'm getting ready to rent a luxury car (a Tesla).. That Rental will be $697.00.. And then they will hold $500 deposit..

When all is said and done.. I will more than likely make a $200 payment and be well beyond the 10% threshold. Am I basically hurting my credit not paying the $697 charge down to say $70 bucks?

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Duke84 — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:53:37 GMT

The thinking is that in order to maximize your FICO score, you should not charge more than 10% at any time on all of your credit. Though I'm working to get utilization down for general purposes, staying within 10% keeps balances in check and should increase your scores considerably in a short amount of time. It's also key if you're planning on making a major purchase, like buying a home.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:59:49 GMT

yeah and see that's thing.. Im solely doing this to Lease a Tesla in about a year.. after i up my income by $20,000 - $30,000.

I have absolutely zero interest in ever having a mortgage. I just dont see any benefit in locking myself into 15 years or 30 years.. It's just ridiculous.

Guess im going to hurt my credit by renting this car.. ahh well.. it's not like it will be past 10% forever.. I actually only need to pay down to $122.50

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Revelate — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:22:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
yeah and see that's thing.. Im solely doing this to Lease a Tesla in about a year.. after i up my income by $20,000 - $30,000.

I have absolutely zero interest in ever having a mortgage. I just dont see any benefit in locking myself into 15 years or 30 years.. It's just ridiculous.

Guess im going to hurt my credit by renting this car.. ahh well.. it's not like it will be past 10% forever.. I actually only need to pay down to $122.50

To be blunt: if your goal is to finance that Tesla and if you are possibly missing auto loan history, why not go finance a cheap car? Would be cheaper than renting over a year.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 17:19:00 GMT

I've actually financed 2 vehicles in the past but because its been more than 10 years those items don't show on my credit report.

And I'm only renting this car for 3 days, just to get a feel for her..

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

MacMan313 — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 04:06:31 GMT

See if your prequalified for a discover card. If not, they may offer you a Secured Discover card.

Discover has the best secured card on the market, with no annual fee, and great rewards. There cards also graduate to non-secured with mature use.

At first, I thought it was best to have one high limit secured card with responsible usage, but after reading everything I should have multiple cards with smaller limits as it shows you are able to handle more than one account. I opted to load the secured discover up as it will maintain the same limit when it does in fact graduate to a non secured card.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 04:50:35 GMT

Don't get more secured cards one is enough to take you even above 760 . Garden this secured card for 6-8 months then you'll be able to get cards like discover it , Amax and Chase .

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 05:03:22 GMT

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/MB-Financial-Secured-Card-Chicagoland/m-p/3757091#M1038268

WISH I had seen this one when starting out...

Here are the 5 cards I have used with a review. Ive gone from low 500s to scores below in 9 months. Also put in some hard work on the baddies.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Secured-cards-my-experience/m-p/3728344#M10269

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 13:06:57 GMT

Interesting response..

I wonder what the others above have to say about your reply. All I want is a 720 credit score.. Not for a mortgage either..

I can't understand why getting 3 credit cards with $200 limits and keeping the balance under $20 warrants a high credit score?..

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Revelate — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:58:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Interesting response..

I wonder what the others above have to say about your reply. All I want is a 720 credit score.. Not for a mortgage either..

I can't understand why getting 3 credit cards with $200 limits and keeping the balance under $20 warrants a high credit score?..

Payment history is king and you build more history faster with 3 cards vs. 1. Inquiries are gone in a year, and I wouldn't do applications before the year is up if it were me, I don't agree with the open one account philosophy when starting: get those accounts and get both payment history and AAOA rolling.

That said not all credit files are created equally; someone with a 720 and one year on 3 credit cards likely has a worse approval chance with a lender than I do with a near 720 (FICO 8 EX) with more history even with all my old negatives from 5 years back.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:17:55 GMT

My friend Revelate is more experienced than I am so take his advice . IMO thinking long term one card is better for the first 6-8 months . What are you gonna do with 3 secured cards a year from now ? their gonna be worthless and useless to you .

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 00:55:33 GMT

Some secured cards graduate. Discover, BOA and us bank all graduate.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Revelate — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 01:14:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My friend Revelate is more experienced than I am so take his advice . IMO thinking long term one card is better for the first 6-8 months . What are you gonna do with 3 secured cards a year from now ? their gonna be worthless and useless to you .

DEpends on the card and your cash flow.

BOFA is a stellar card that you can keep basically forever. Discover if you can get it is excellent too, I'm not as familiar with that one.

The others, you keep till you no longer need them or you need the cash. Even the cards you can get at a year, realitically unless your needs are very very vanilla as far as rewards go, you'll have at least one if not two more app rounds; there's plenty of secured cards from CU's that are at $0 AF and you're building that relationship right from the start.

You want more than one card ideally to begin with so you can start the AAOA clock, really if I were doing this again I'd do 3 secured revolving, and 2 secured installment loans and then sit on my hands for a year from what I know now. It's hard to predict what'll happen in life, and as such we're all best off trying to build the best file that we can ASAP, and 5 tradelines of different types is way better than 1 at that same year.

It's similar to the app spree methodology / math I post here occasionally in terms of AAOA building and minimizing damage over time, and every single payment to every single tradeline is one more token in the bucket telling UW "I'm not a risk, really!"

Also along those lines, people don't usually find this forum until something went wrong: mortgage was no go, or couldn't get auto financed, or got a shockingly high rate or the collection notices started coming in. Whatever the reason, it's best to build credit as fast as possible and only the single tradeline is leaving a whole lot of credit history on the ground: it's not bad, it's just not optimal.

Really the only constant is that time passes, and as such it's optimal to make best use of that time possible. That's really all I'm getting at.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 10:54:24 GMT

@relevate, refugee..

all good points..IMO this process seems very slimey and sleazy.. But I guess this is our wonderful " Credit System "..

Rewards.. To me don't matter much as I don't get to jump on a plane whenever I want because I got a " BALL and CHAiN " of a Fiancé.

Since acquiring the US Bank card, I got approved this week for Capital one.. And I the 3rd card will be a local credit union..

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

dddewdrop — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 11:52:20 GMT

If you really want to improve your credit, I was suggest to you that 1 secured card is enough secured cards. I would try to get an unsecured Capital One card as quickly as possible. It depends how much money you have. If you have a lot of money you should be able to deposit it with a bank and get an unsecured card with a high limit. It will help your credit and look better on your report the sooner you make the jump to unsecured credit. My story was i got a Capital One unsecured card with a $300 limit with similar credit scores to yours and within a few months my credit line with them was up to 1000 dollars. Good luck.

Re: 3 Secured Credit Cards or 1 Secured w/ high limit?

elim — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 12:33:41 GMT

if you can't get unsecured then i suggest SDFCU share secured loan and secured card (both can be acquired with the same deposit) 2 for 1 with no HP and no AF.

that will add your other revolver and give you a score boost for the mix as well as show some good installment history.

https://www.sdfcu.org/