Low Income Cards?

[Anonymous]

I'm on disability and have an annual income of $8,796.

I was successful, last year, in getting approved for Cap One Platinum Mastercard(for fair credit) and then last fall for Cap One Platinum Quicksilver.

The first card has a credit line of $800 and the Quicksilver has a credit line of $600. My goal is to reach $3,000 in available credit.

My scores are between 600 and 614 across the board.

Can y'all recommend any other cards that will work with very low income as Cap One does?

I'm trying for 3 credit cards alltogether.

Many Thanks

[Gunnar419]

Three questions.

Are you also a student, by any chance?

Can you claim any household income beyond what is personally paid to you?

And what's holding your score down? My first thought is that you probably have some baddies on your CRs and you'd do best to try to get rid of them before apping for a third card. You've managed to get a couple of decent cards, all things considered, but higher scores would definitely help.

[elim]

Combine limits and app for 2 more Cap One cards.    It takes some time but that will get you to your goal (and beyond)

[Anonymous]

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

Three questions.

Are you also a student, by any chance?

Can you claim any household income beyond what is personally paid to you?

And what's holding your score down? My first thought is that you probably have some baddies on your CRs and you'd do best to try to get rid of them before apping for a third card. You've managed to get a couple of decent cards, all things considered, but higher scores would definitely help.

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No, I'm not a student.

I just started repairing my credit last spring, and am still confused about claiming household income. I tried to app for Discover IT today, and was denied due to my income. I was thinking of asking them to reconsider, but, I don't know if it would work or not. 

I do see that they have a secured credit card, so, I thought I would ask for that while I have them on the phone.

My score, last May was 480. It tanked after my mom passed away and I tried to pay all of the bills that she and I had shared. I have managed to pay off three judgments and they say satisfied on my credit reports. 

I still have two charge offs that have balances on them. 

The good things that are reporting are...the 2 Capital One cards and a car loan that I took out last November.

[Anonymous]

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@elim wrote:

Combine limits and app for 2 more Cap One cards.    It takes some time but that will get you to your goal (and beyond)

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Thank you for replying.

Forgive me for asking, but, what does combine limits mean? And, I didn't know that I could have more than two card with Capital One. How does that work and which two would be good to apply for?

Many thanks.  

[Imperfectfuture]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

Three questions.

Are you also a student, by any chance?

Can you claim any household income beyond what is personally paid to you?

And what's holding your score down? My first thought is that you probably have some baddies on your CRs and you'd do best to try to get rid of them before apping for a third card. You've managed to get a couple of decent cards, all things considered, but higher scores would definitely help.

---

No, I'm not a student.

I just started repairing my credit last spring, and am still confused about claiming household income. I tried to app for Discover IT today, and was denied due to my income. I was thinking of asking them to reconsider, but, I don't know if it would work or not. 

I do see that they have a secured credit card, so, I thought I would ask for that while I have them on the phone.

My score, last May was 480. It tanked after my mom passed away and I tried to pay all of the bills that she and I had shared. I have managed to pay off three judgments and they say satisfied on my credit reports. 

I still have two charge offs that have balances on them. 

The good things that are reporting are...the 2 Capital One cards and a car loan that I took out last November.

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Disability also, with side income.  Need to clean up reports.  Small limits are because you are seen as risky.  I cleaned up my reports.  I saved, and started investing.  Now, do some side business activities. 

Visit the rebuild your credit forum.  If the judgements are satisfied, you can get them removed.  Work with good will and PFDs over there.  Your scores are low for Discover, wait.  I built my file up to 770 with just two low limit cards.  The 770 was the jump after removal of all baddies.  Those were rebuilder cards, so I needed to apply for prime cards, hence the drop in scores.  I have since closed two cards, and more are on the chopping block.  But I will let them age a little longer for AA oA. 

As to other cards, get a secured CU card.  With good credit, you should be able to get around 16k total.  Since you do not want low limit cards, you will need to pick carefully when it is time.  Discover will do better later on.

[Callandra]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

Three questions.

Are you also a student, by any chance?

Can you claim any household income beyond what is personally paid to you?

And what's holding your score down? My first thought is that you probably have some baddies on your CRs and you'd do best to try to get rid of them before apping for a third card. You've managed to get a couple of decent cards, all things considered, but higher scores would definitely help.

---

No, I'm not a student.

I just started repairing my credit last spring, and am still confused about claiming household income. I tried to app for Discover IT today, and was denied due to my income. I was thinking of asking them to reconsider, but, I don't know if it would work or not. 

I do see that they have a secured credit card, so, I thought I would ask for that while I have them on the phone.

My score, last May was 480. It tanked after my mom passed away and I tried to pay all of the bills that she and I had shared. I have managed to pay off three judgments and they say satisfied on my credit reports. 

I still have two charge offs that have balances on them. 

The good things that are reporting are...the 2 Capital One cards and a car loan that I took out last November.

---

If you were denied due to income, that's going to be a tough recon. Are you married/have an SO who you have reasonable access to their income? If so, you can use that as household income (I'm assuming you are over 21, if you are under 21, you will need to claim only your income). Even with the baddies cleared, you might still have a hard time with income under $10k (it seems a lot of creditors want at least $10k income for non-students). 

For now, I would just work on clearing your reports as higher scores will make it easier to get higher limits; try pay-for-deletes with the COs (or just pay them anyway since unpaid COs look worse on manual review and you can also write goodwill letters to have them removed once they are paid). I don't think it's just your income that's giving you low limits. I got to mid 700s on just two cards so you don't necessarily need three cards to have a decent score. If you really want another card, you might have to try for a secured or store card. You might be a bit low for Barclays (but try for their Rewards card once your COs are paid and you are in the mid/upper 600s). 

Check out the rebuilding forum here for help with getting your baddies removed. 

[Anonymous]

I'm on the exact same $733/month income and got approved for an AmEx BCE card with a 15K starting limit from a 744 Ex score. That was a bit of a shocker! And yes, they do have it in their system correctly, I triple-checked!

I also have an REI card which is through U.S. Bank. They don't seem to mind the low income.

BECU is my other card, I had a lifelong history with them beforehand though so I don't know how they might be towards someone new, and they're still a bit restrictive so not everyone can join.

Before apping for the AmEx card I did a huge amount of research. CreditKarma has lots of user reviews available on cards, and by reading those experiences I narrowed down the cards until there was only two remaining. It helped me rule out the ones i was unlikely to get, such as people reporting being turned down for less than 2 years of history. For you, it might be looking up which cards reveiwers report being denied for a similar record or approved. Anyway, after narrowing it all down I began apping for one, but their process informed me they don't accept that low of an income, so that kindly saved me from submitting it. Then apped for the Amex and got it.

If you're going to shoot for AmEx, you might want to aim for a different card; I hear they want higher scores for their rewards cards. Others could probalby advise you better on that. But AmEx definitely doesn't take issue with the low income, and neither, it seems, does U.S. bank.

Also, credit unions tend to be nicer in general, if I were you I just might look up local ones and if I found one that looked nice, visit them in person and talk to someone about setting something up.

Hope this helps and good luck!

[Anonymous]

Here is a problem with SS or Disability income: It is net. Most applications ask for annual income and most of us who are still working go to our gross income, not the amount we take home. Gross income before the taxes are taken out. Because of this, when I worked in auto lending, I used allow one to gross their income up. What I mean by that is to add 30% to the net figure you actually take home, to consider that most folks have state, federal and social security taken out of their checks.

Room mates are household income

Money given to you by family members is household income

I wouldn't ask anyone to outright lie about their income, only to consider legitimate sources of "considerable" income that might help your case, if that makes any sense.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm on the exact same $733/month income and got approved for an AmEx BCE card with a 15K starting limit from a 744 Ex score. That was a bit of a shocker! And yes, they do have it in their system correctly, I triple-checked!

I also have an REI card which is through U.S. Bank. They don't seem to mind the low income.

BECU is my other card, I had a lifelong history with them beforehand though so I don't know how they might be towards someone new, and they're still a bit restrictive so not everyone can join.

Before apping for the AmEx card I did a huge amount of research. CreditKarma has lots of user reviews available on cards, and by reading those experiences I narrowed down the cards until there was only two remaining. It helped me rule out the ones i was unlikely to get, such as people reporting being turned down for less than 2 years of history. For you, it might be looking up which cards reveiwers report being denied for a similar record or approved. Anyway, after narrowing it all down I began apping for one, but their process informed me they don't accept that low of an income, so that kindly saved me from submitting it. Then apped for the Amex and got it.

If you're going to shoot for AmEx, you might want to aim for a different card; I hear they want higher scores for their rewards cards. Others could probalby advise you better on that. But AmEx definitely doesn't take issue with the low income, and neither, it seems, does U.S. bank.

Also, credit unions tend to be nicer in general, if I were you I just might look up local ones and if I found one that looked nice, visit them in person and talk to someone about setting something up.

Hope this helps and good luck!

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With a 733/month income they gave you 15k SL? You max that out will take you 2 years to pay it off with no interest.