topic Re: Getting discourage in Rebuilding Your Credit

Getting discourage

Tinkerbell319 — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 17:38:31 GMT

I just checked my credit karma and my score dropped 21 points I am in the low 6's and was mid 700's about 6 months ago.

I know I maxed out all of my cards. However, I am paying the all down to 29% balances with each pay check. By September first I should have the all down.

But seeing those scores drop so low, just makes me feel depressed.

Re: Getting discourage

SSgtUSMC — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 17:46:04 GMT

Don't get too discouraged and don't stress too much on the score itself. Focus more on paying down your debt and the score will slowly rise. My piece of advice is to ake a list of all your open accounts and find out when each one of those accounts reports to the credit agencies. They usually report when your monthly statement is generated but you can call and double-check this. Having this info, now you can schedule your card payments around these dates which will affect your score faster. Keep in mind that other avenues include paying off lowest balances first or paying balances off with highest APR. Again, if you want to get your FICO score higher, pay off balances which will be reporting to FICO first ensuring that your balances are under 30% utilization.

Another thing piece of information is that reports only update once a month so if you are rebuilding your credit, you may want to subscribe to a monitoring service. I advise Experian because it uses FICO 8 and updates your score and report daily and also give you access to Equifax and Transunion FICO scores and updates reports monthly.

Re: Getting discourage

Jannelo — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 18:37:19 GMT

I never go by CreditKarma's scores. I've seen my scores plummet on there. But they never mean anything in relation to my true FICO score. I go by my Experian FICO 8 score, which you get free.

Re: Getting discourage

gdale6 — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 22:07:23 GMT

As already stated do not worry about CK scores they are not what most lenders see or even use. Fico scores are the ones that you need to look at. We have all been here before with low Ficos for whatever reason, as you pay them down then the score comes up. Good luck recovering from the maxed out condition,

Re: Getting discourage

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 15:44:07 GMT

Don't get discouraged! Credit Karma has a funky scoring algorithm that usually makes it seem much worse than it actually is. Besides, Fico scores can vary day by day. It just depends on what model they use etc.
Expect ebbs and flows on your score. You can get one of your scores (Experian, I think) for free on the Discover site.
Credit Karma is good for monitoring changes on your reports, but the scores, well yeah, not so much.
Keep your head up and keep plugging along!

Re: Getting discourage

coreysw12 — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 19:09:59 GMT

I know the feeling. While 2 of my cards have $0 balance, the other 2 are nearly maxed out right now because of a combination of an old carried balance plus HEAVY new spending on them that I wasn't able to pay down before the statements cut. My scores all dropped between 25-40 points this month as a result. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel - like you, I'll have those cards back to a reasonable balance under 29% in just a month or two. But right now, it's discouraging to see that point drop after getting solid score gains every month this year before now.

Just be happy that the points drops are "superficial", meaning that they're temporary. You'll see all the points back (plus probably more) once you've got them paid back down. FICO has no memory - in September, it won't matter what your balance was in July.

Re: Getting discourage

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Jul 2019 23:56:46 GMT

If your only issue is the utilization and you are planning to pay it down by Sept then you are having filet mignon in front of all the starving people on this board that are dealing with multiple baddies, charge offs, collections etc.

Come September you’ll be back up . This is just temporary, don’t stress it.

Re: Getting discourage

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 22:36:16 GMT

Yeah totally disreguard CK scores, CK currently shows my TU score 90 points below what Experiean has it at.