My rebuild journey

[apay]

Hoping this will help someone, and keep me accountable to focus on rebuilding and getting as much advice as possible.

Received discharge Ch 7 on 8/1/17.  Filed due to repo with Ford in October 2016, many medical  and old debt collection accounts.  Had Capital One secured and unsecured for about $1000 total, Credit one for $400, Fingerhut for $1200, Wells Fargo Dealer Services for about $20k (still have the vehicle, but included it, and very upside down/behind so planning to surrender).

Just completed a dispute letter for Equifax for both my husband and I (we filed joint bk 7).  I used the template I found here.  Found a few accounts not IIB (included in bankruptcy), wrong addresses, and unauthorized inquiries.  Their website is not allowing disputes so I am mailing the letters out.

I have my other 2 reports to go through the same steps, but my husband is unable to get other 2 from annualcreditreport because he's used free one in past year.  Any way around this to get free one?

Goals---1) take steps to 700, 2) get a new car or 2 new cars (not wanting to finance, but don't have cash to buy), 3) purchase new home as soon as we can (2 years out minimum, from what I've read?)

Any advice, experience, encouragement, or whatever is MORE than welcomed:-)

[Anonymous]

My discharge date is about a month before yours.   

To get a free credit report try Credit Check Total.  It's $1 but you have to remember to call and cancel the account before the trial period is up.  You can get your report from all 3 bureaus.  They're great - because you can use the trial period multiple times.  

Also - for disputes, you can do that through Credit Karma (at least for TransUnion and Equifax).  You won't be able to get the report but you can complete the dispute procces online through them.

[apay]

Great. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I filed Bankruptcy 4 years ago. Discharged in December of 2012. I immediately applied for and got a credit one, 1st Premier and Mrrrick bank card within the 1st 6 months, ALL Terrible cards but I knew that my purpose was to build credit not to get cashback or rewards points. 12 mths later I got Capital One. This brought my scores to approx 608, 618, 625. I was then able to BUY A HOME, I closed on my house exactly 24mths after my BK!! 1 year after I applied for Barclay who shockingly gave me a $5000 CL. Now I am 4 yrs post-BK & I have 2 Discover cards each $8000 CL and BOA $3000. I closed out the 1st Premier & Merrick Bank. Anyway my point is there is life after bankruptcy if you pay attention to and rebuild your credit. Best of luck to you!! Btw, If you just filed bankruptcy why are you putting in disputes? Not sure Im understanding??

[apay]

Awesome! I'm following the rebuild to 700 steps and one of the first things was to check reports for inaccuracies. I found a few accounts that weren't showing as included in bankruptcy that truly were.

[apay]

Still in the process of getting things removed/corrected on reports.  We were concerned our vehicle that was included would be picked up any day, and being that we are already a one car family, we couldn't chance that.  Found a dealership that had sent us a ton of mailers saying they'd help us.  After trying several dealerships that were pushing us to get newer car, lower miles around 19% apr because it's the only thing they could get us approved for--leaving us with a payment between $500-$600 per month for 5 years.....

I did not want this type of loan.  My plan was to have an older car around $10k, we could finance with payments $200-$300.  As credit ages and gets cleaned up, scores will go up and then we can trade it in for a better loan and/or take personal loan to pay it off.

At any rate (no pun intended), the dealership that had sent us a ton of mailers ended up doing JUST that for us.  And the salesman was so great to work with...we bought the first car he showed us because it was him doing exactly what I asked for.  So we have a payment of $320.  And I am hopeful that 1) we can afford this 2) the payments, and line of credit will help our score 3) we now have 2 cars until the other car is taken 4) we're in a crappy loan, but for half of the total amount other dealers were trying to push us into and it's a lot easier to pay off a $10k loan than $20k.

[Anonymous]

This is inspiring! My wife and I are 9 months out of BK ch7. My score are back into the 620-640 range and we have a discover secured card, capitol one, credit one and 4 store cards all of which have only 1-3% utilization. We have an auto loan with Ally. We set a goal of closing on a new home on our 24 month dishcarge aniversry. Reading your post gives us motivation!!

[apay]

Awesome!  Yes that's our goal, to buy house in 2 years.  I recently read somewhere it's 2 years from file date not discharge date, so that will be March 2019 for us!

[Scupra]

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@apay wrote:

Awesome!  Yes that's our goal, to buy house in 2 years.  I recently read somewhere it's 2 years from file date not discharge date, so that will be March 2019 for us!

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For an FHA the clock starts at discharge date unfortunately. I love the fact that you have a plan with set goals, it's exactly what I did! I missed my 2 year mark and ended up buying around 3 years post BK. I locked in at 3.5% so hang in there!

The link below is all about the waiting period after BK.

https://www.fha.com/fha_article?id=305

[apay]

Update***

We made our first payment on new vehicle and the account bumped our scores up about 20 points each.

We were preapproved for Capital One unsecured for $300 limit, which also bumped up scores a bit.

We signed up for self lender loan that will deduct $48.50 from our account monthly.  Each month it reports to all 3 CB as a loan and at the end of 12 months you get your money plus interest back---good way to force us to save money too.

We still have vehicle from WF dealer svcs that was included in ch 7.  We haven't heard from them at all.  I've read sometimes finance companies won't bother getting vehicle, because it cost more than it'd be worth to them.  With discharge 8/1/17 I imagine they are just going through required process and it's taking awhile?  Anyone with experience on this?  

DH student loan payments started back up.  Hoping to just keep trucking along with ontime payments--wish scores would jump up higher though.