I was on Care One's debt management plan for a few years, which requires you to close down your cards. Then I paid that off with a secured loan against my car. Then my credit union had me open one joint credit card with my husband (who also had no cards and a much lower score than I had) for $1,000 so that we'd have that tradeline on our reports for mortgage purposes. It was good to get that started but $1,000 between two people as their only card is essentially useless for utilization purposes! You get $300 on it and your utilization is 30%!
We closed on our house February 26th, and I closed on a personal loan through my credit union for our fence this past Saturday.
Yesterday I applied for two credit cards - Am Ex Blue Cash and Kroger Visa - got $8,000 on Am Ex and $16,000 on Visa! Added my husband as an authorized user on both. I never want to carry a balance on credit cards again, but it'll be so nice to have these. For years living on cash was stressful when we traveled and a hotel wanted to put a hold on a card for hundreds of dollars!
Starting Score: January 2014 Experian: 713 Equifax: 668 Transunion: 691
December 2015 Score: Experian: 766 Equifax: 751 Transunion: 759
October 2018 Score: Transunion:735Goal Score: 800’s across the boardTake the myFICO Fitness Challenge
