In the rebuilding stages...open to suggestions

[Anonymous]

Oops..I initally posted in the wrong forum. First, I'd like to say I think each of you are courageous for sharing your experiences and knowledge to help many including myself! So here's my BK experience thus far...

I declared my 1st BK 7 in 8/07. Rebuild since then and unfortunately was out of work for 10 mos in 2014. I then found myself struggling to catch things up so I decided to declare BK 7 again in 9/15. I was recently discharged 12/15.

My 1st card after discharge was the unsecured Matrix M.C. just 1 day after discharge. Jan 2016 I opened a unsecured Surge M.C. In Feb I opened a Fingerhut freshstart and Kohl's charge ($300). Also, in Feb I opened a $500 secured loan with my local bank with a 12 mos term fixed. I received a pre approval offer from Legacy Visa in April 2016 in which i applied and got approved for a $350 limit. May 2016 I opened a $1000 unsecured with my local C.U. with a 12 mos term fixed. With this loan I paid off both my Matrix and Surge cards. However, due to some large car repairs I had to use my Surge Card. I didn't have enough in my savings to use on the repairs.

I did pay off my Fingerhut account after 5 payments in May and have since been upgraded to a revolving fingerhut account with a $250 limit. I'm not able to obtain a capital one (they won't even do a hard pull) nor credit one cards because I had 3 capital one cards I included in my recent BK and a credit one card I included in my recent BK as well. I've cut up my Surge and Legacy Visa cards so I won't be able to swipe and run the balances up.

My goal is to pay down my revolving debt to free up cash flow, increase savings acct bal, increase my credit score as high as I can (650 & higher), and start the house buying process in 2018. I have no auto or mortgage debt however I do make payments on my private student loans monthly (never had a delinquent student loan).

I'm really trying to be more financially driven for success. I'm slowly but surely am trying to develope new postitive ways of handling credit including not applying for too much credit and over extending myself. My transunion score is 562 and my equifax is 517 per credit karma as of today. Experian score I'm unsure of. I know the 2 BK filings & the credit card balances being close to the limit are really hurting me. I feel as though 8 months since discharged I've been fortunate & grateful to obtain new trade lines but 1 too many. However, I've been paying everything on time since being discharge.

When will I be able to apply and obtain a capital one card? And is it best to make consistent on time payments on credit accounts or pay things off quickly when trying to rebuild credit & score? When I look at my credit card statements I become frustrated and then want to pay them off a little quicker rather than paying the balances down to 30% while continously paying on time. I think of my credit like a report card. After so long the positive grade must outweigh the negative grades hence raising the GPA. So I think of credit in a similar light only the positive on time trade lines should soon outweigh the negative marks hence raising the score. Many have said it takes time and patience for credit to improve over time. I guess I'm not seeing quick improvement of results..ha. I'm trying to make a bigger effort this time around to handle my credit much better. I haven't seen my 700 credit score in nearly 10 years...geesh. Advice anyone....thank you!

[Scupra]

Hello and welcome to myFICO You are spot on, the 2 BK's and the utilization is killing your score. Have you sat down and created a budget? I don't like a lot of things Dave Ramsey says, but he has some very good budget ideas/plans. You need to set up a good budget and start getting some money into savings.

I would take those credit cards and either cut them up, or sock drawer them asap. Figure out which has the highest interest and start paying it off as quick as possible. After that, move to the next one until all your cards are paid off. FICO has no memory so there is no need for you to be playing the utilization game right now.

Once the cards are paid off its time to start building a savings and emergency savings. Good rule of thumb is to have 3-6 months of bills in a savings account. Your savings is what you should be using for car repairs etc..

Once you have your finances in order I would start the credit fun back up. Best of luck to you!