I've been heavily studying this topic for a couple of weeks.. I don't know all the answers first hand from my own experiences but I can share what I have gathered.
The one thing I Can say with certainty is I HATED first progress as a secured card. Mostly because there was no way to pay besides snail mail or in store bill pay. being disabled I found this annoying and frustrating to say the least!
After studying these forums I have found these tips, which I chose to follow in hopes of rebuilding an awesome credit profile.
1. if you don't have installment loans on your credit already. Taking out a loan and paying off down to 9% of the balance (and keeping it open while you make the tiny remaining payments for as long as you can milk the open account status) gives a huge boost in scores. less so if you have open or even closed previous installment loans, but it still worked for me and my score went up a good 40 points from this one move! (That was just on the day the loan first reported and not including the score bump with the payments being on time for the last 3 months since I started it) Also, I didnt go try and take out a loan or do a secured loan at a bank or anything.. I did a self lender type loan and just made the first payment bigger than the payment due. others have done secured and even unsecured credit builder type loans and reported success as well.
2. I can't remember the abbreviation that was used for this method, but this is how it was explained. You get 3 cards, secured or not (depending what you get preapproved for). You use them but pay the balances off when the statement cuts, or at least before they report. (you can find out what day most cards report by searching here or google even) You want to make sure that 2 of the cards are reporting a $0 balance and that the 3rd reports 8.9% of the limit. aparently this is the sweetspot for FICO scoring method and your scores will increase the fastest possible with this method.
Tip: Discover and Capital One have preapproval tools so you can know if you are approved without having to take the hard pull.
Hopefully some of the experienced contributers here will comment and give some more advice. Otherwise, I suggest searching the site for anything and everything you need to know.
I'm confused - if you filed chapter 13 in 1/19 why are you looking for credit today? You'll first have to obtain trustee approval before obtaining any credit (until your repayment/case is closed)
I'd highly advise you to speak with your attorney before doing anything
