Your best tips to rebuild while in a Chapter 13

[Anonymous]

This site has been great, but there is a ton of info to read.  I am hoping that maybe I can consildate this a little bit for my own benefit.  I am currently in the early stages of a CH 13.  Tried getting a 7, but was punted to a 13 cause of my income.  Which sucked, but oh well.  So I burned BOA, Capital, Chase, Citi, Amazon, and Discover (so I have a feeling I am not off to a good start). 

I was given a Pay Pal line of credit right after my CH 13 was approved.  Not really sure how that happened, but I got a CL of 1200.  I also have an offer from CreditOne Bank, that I am hesitent on applying for.  I know there fees are high, but think I should give it a shot?  I was just going to use this to pay cable and phone bills with.

According to Mint my Credit Score is 653 and according to Credt Karma my CS is 657 with TransUnion and 766 with Equifax (Not sure how that is possible.

Any advice or direction would be great and even it's don't do anything till you pay off CH 13.  At this point I just want to rebuild and I am also thinking of making extra payments into the 13 to get this thing paid off as soon as possible.

Thank you all in advance.

[Anonymous]

So I just doubled checked my Experian on their actual site and my CS is 565.  So that makes more sense considering everything.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

First I would ask your lawyer and or trustee to make sure its okay to obtain credit  while in a Ch 13. I filed back in June obtained a Credit One card 300SL and 39AF before I filed the petition, Since then I obtained Open Sky(no credit check) $200 deposit, US bank secured I have a checking account for over 2 years with them which probably helped. A self lender account if you have no installement account reporting. My gamestop card with 2+ years payment history survived somehow so that helps with the rebuilding process. I pretty much burned everyone Cap One/Chase/BOA/Sync/Amex/Disco/NFCU/Penfed. Im pretty satisfied with my rebuild so far got a long way to go but its doable. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Slick.  Yeah I am going to talk to my lawyer, but just wanted to get some opinions here before I did.  

Just received an offer from OLLO with no AF, so that is a much better offer compared to Credit One.  

[Anonymous]

My other question is that my State and Federal taxes were included in my 13 and I am paying them with my monthly payments.  I will be getting a Fed Tax return this year, will I receive that or will it be taken by Trustee to pay that back?

Again I will be asking most of these questions to my lawyer, but I just want to get some perspectives from you all with your experiences

[Yeliaba1]

Hockey, I’ve had luck graduating secured cards with Navy and FNBO while in Ch 13.  Like the previous poster said, make sure you get trustee approval or guidance from your attorney.  I also had an OpenSky secured. While OpenSky has its faults, there is no credit check and hanging on to it through your BK will allow you to finish with a well -aged account ( an important detail often overlooked).

[dynamicvb]

I had some back tax payments included in mine and the feds took any refunds before I even saw them. Definitely want to make sure you get approval from your trustee. I went my entire 5 years without doing any new credit and while my score may be higher now if I would have,  teaching me to live on my own reserves really helped me learn a lesson and better plan for life. I believe I'm in much better financial shape now than I would have been if I would have used credit during that time. Just my opinion

[pizza1]

Your refunds if any from both federal and state will go back to them to satisfy their debt.

Also, before you get any loans or credit of any kind, you. HAVE to get permission from the trustee first. So, your attorney will have to contact them and ask permission for you to get a cc or loan or whatever.

[Anonymous]

As others have said talk to your lawyer and trustee to make sure you can.  I even asked about going back to school as I would have to take out student loans.  His questions was will this hlep you in the future to make more money, said yes and he said go for it.

You can also look into getting a secured card.

As for tax returns it all depends but it sounds like you will have to turn yours in.  If I remember correctly you can keep up to $200 or $250 and the rest goes to your debts.  I got to keep mine for some reason or another.

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon everyone and Happy New Year.  Hope things are tracking in the right direction and going well.  So just wanted to give a little update.  I spoke with my Lawyer and he told me, if I get a tax return the money will come to me and not go towards the debt.  Found that pretty odd, but is great to hear.  But I will beleive it when I see it.  But if I do get some return back a good chunk of it will go towards the debt.

As for opening other accounts to start building, he didn't answer that question.  Will have to follow up on him about it.  But after reviewing my CR I have a few hard inquires coming off in May, so I will wait till they fall off and see what my CS looks like.   Rather have the higher score if I am giving the green light.  By then I will be finished a year of paying into the 13, only 4 more to go.

Thanks again for the advice and I'll keep updating this thread as things progress.