@ficorenavator wrote:Thanks for your words of encouragement and honesty. I have one more question where should I start looking on the forums for steps and procedures on rebuilding my credit after bk? Are there any rebuilder cc's out there? Please help!!! I promised myself I will not make the same mistakes again!!! I've trying to repair my credit myself by sending gw letters and disputing items. I had some success and I also, have a couple of items due to fall off this year as well but, the negative items simply outweight the positive. Lates, derrog account descriptions, one judgement, high cc utilization, and collections. Please help!!!
That depends on what you are interested in, the fastest approval to a CC or the best long term strategy to ultimate great credit.
Personally, I would suggest that whether you go with/attempt some or any of the builder cards, i would pick a good credit union that has secured loans and secured cards services and establish a savings account. I would add a little savings each paycheck to it to gain some tenure as a member.
Once you have $500 in savings, ask for a savings/share secured loan against the savings account. Pay it off over a 12 month period. Talk to the CU about their secured card. Get one as soon as they will allow it. Use it for your cash expense that you can PIF end of month. The combination of a paid personal loan and successful and responsible use secured card, plus growing savings will provide a genuine, long term financial and credit relationship that will "grow" with your and your improving credit over the years. Builder cards won't grow with you. They will eventually outlive their usefullness, which you need to understand their use up front. They are the "get back in the game" cards that you love when you get them, but will eventually find frustrating when they will not grow to reflect your renewed and improved credit. They will only see you for the ugly credit that you were in the beginning. But this is fine, they are tools for a particular need and use.
If you can, have your paycheck direct deposited to the credit union and use them for your checking, if they will give you check. They might not allow checking initially if credit is really bad plus BK. Don't allow that to sour you on them. Use the savings. Use the secured loan. After you pay the loan off, continue to add to the savings, whatever you can spare.....part of rebuilding credit is establishing, maintaining and building a savings and emergency fund....so this is an important part.
Begin working on the credit basics to repair what you can on your CR. However, as mentioned, time is going to be a big factor for you at this point. You will not be able to remove all the negatives, so you need to re-establish new credit to give some offsetting new positive to deflect the old derogs.
Capital One, HSBC, Orchard, First Premiere and other "builder cards" are known for working with bad credit, no credit or post- BK.
Use this forum to learn, ask questions, get encouragement and ALSO to share your growing knowledge, experience and perspective.
Good luck and don't lose sight of the prize which will seem a long way off right now. But each step you take is going to be one step closer. 