topic Re: Celebrating some progress in Rebuilding Your Credit

Celebrating some progress

Ascanius — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 19:22:01 GMT

As of today, for the first time, my credit score is in "Very Good" territory at 744 (Experian).

One year ago today (Experian): 687

Furthest back credit report i can find, from March 2022 (CreditKarma/Vantage3): 663

A big jump occured over the past week or so as my two delinquent marks aged off the account. So this reflects about 6 years of "rebuilding," although for a lot of that time I wasn't making a ton of progress. I was an idiot coming out of college and took out cards without any financial discipline whatsoever, ran up balances, then couldn't pay them off due to being lazy and not moving my career forward. I'm embarrassed to say that even after getting two cards charged-off (the delinquent marks that just came off), for years afterwards I was still not really budgeting or being smart with money, and finding myself with balances and making minimum payments. In the past year and a half, I've finally been able to do what I knew I needed to do for a long time: stick to a budget, pay off everything every month, don't spend what I don't have. Besides the score improvement this has had a positive knock-on effect of helping me actually invest and save money and get out of the paycheck-to-paycheck mindest, and just changing my relationship to my money in general.

So this feels good, and the best part is, I don't really feel a compulsion to get another card right now. I know that I can't really afford an annual fee right now with my still relatively low income. I might give the new Bilt card a shot depending on the terms, or get the gold Delta Amex (currently have the blue one) for a year before the AF kicks in. Other than that, it's time to chill out on the applications and just work on saving money.

Re: Celebrating some progress

FicoMike0 — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 23:36:46 GMT

Congratulations!

Re: Celebrating some progress

Jessie — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:31:08 GMT

Way to go! It sounds like you really have your stuff together now. Keep it up!

Re: Celebrating some progress

RobertS2 — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:02:48 GMT

You need to do something crazy to celebrate when you get to 850!!

Re: Celebrating some progress

LivingMyLife — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:47:43 GMT

Congratulations. I am starting over due to a financial decision I made as a parent. I am now feeling the consequences. It is NEVER to late to start over and get things in order. Your post inspired me.

Re: Celebrating some progress

LiamDavis — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 23:10:22 GMT

Awesome! Happy for you And I think you're smart to slowplay it with new accounts.

Re: Celebrating some progress

FireMedic1 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 16:40:44 GMT

Nice. Nothing broken. Dont fix it.

Re: Celebrating some progress

Patient957 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:49:08 GMT

@Ascanius wrote:
As of today, for the first time, my credit score is in "Very Good" territory at 744 (Experian).

One year ago today (Experian): 687

Furthest back credit report i can find, from March 2022 (CreditKarma/Vantage3): 663

A big jump occured over the past week or so as my two delinquent marks aged off the account. So this reflects about 6 years of "rebuilding," although for a lot of that time I wasn't making a ton of progress. I was an idiot coming out of college and took out cards without any financial discipline whatsoever, ran up balances, then couldn't pay them off due to being lazy and not moving my career forward. I'm embarrassed to say that even after getting two cards charged-off (the delinquent marks that just came off), for years afterwards I was still not really budgeting or being smart with money, and finding myself with balances and making minimum payments. In the past year and a half, I've finally been able to do what I knew I needed to do for a long time: stick to a budget, pay off everything every month, don't spend what I don't have. Besides the score improvement this has had a positive knock-on effect of helping me actually invest and save money and get out of the paycheck-to-paycheck mindest, and just changing my relationship to my money in general.

So this feels good, and the best part is, I don't really feel a compulsion to get another card right now. I know that I can't really afford an annual fee right now with my still relatively low income. I might give the new Bilt card a shot depending on the terms, or get the gold Delta Amex (currently have the blue one) for a year before the AF kicks in. Other than that, it's time to chill out on the applications and just work on saving money.

Congrats on your progress.

If your sig is up to date, it looks like you have a nice set of no-AF cards. If that Open Sky card is the $35 AF one, then you might consider closing it. Given the rest of your setup, with some great rewards cards, it's not doing you any good. You've outgrown it at this point.

Re: Celebrating some progress

Ascanius — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:11:40 GMT

It is. I will be cancelling soon, I have a reminder set to do so. I called to cancel the last time the AF hit and they offered to refund my AF, so I just went with that. Figured another year of credit age couldn't hurt.

Re: Celebrating some progress

Priory_Man — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 17:32:07 GMT

Well done. You should be proud of yourself at this point, you acknowledged your mistakes and fixed them. Now you know how all that feels you'll be in a better place to make the right decision when you do feel it's the right time to start applying for a new line of credit