Great Scott!! - Amex BCE | Lowes | NFCU Platinum

[Anonymous]

Back on the road to recovery in many ways.  Three years ago my wife lost her job due to a company shutdown (40%) of our income and a month later she was diagosed with stage 2 breast cancer. We didn't carry much CC debt with the 4 credit cards we had.  We have good health insurance but with her job loss, 14 months of treatment and recovery and co-pays we maxed out everything and used ALL of our savings.  We managed to keep all the cards current, car payments made and had a roof over our head.  Some of those medical bills turned to collections unfortunately.  $2,800 in collections. We were 97% maxxed on our cards for well over a year.  

Fast forward my wife is doing well and I've been hammering away at those 4 cards since.  We just paid off the last collection a week ago and it was removed. Our current utilization is down to 2%. 

I went on an app spree in the last 20 days and picked up an Amex BCE (I should have been patient and waited until that collection was off but I didn't). They gave me a $1,000.  I'll ask for that 3xCLI when the 61 day mark rolls around. 

Next was Lowes. Approved online for 1K so I called a few days later and they raised it to $12,100.  We will use this card down the road when we start building on our Western NC mountain property in the next few years.

We have been with NFCU for 2 decades. We've had a personal loan and several car loans but never a credit card with them. Just reading what others have done made my want to see if I could follow up the $12.1k Lowes limit.  I online app'd on 8/15 and the next morning (yesterday) I saw they approved me for 15k.  I will ask for a CLI when the time comes for that. 

Our score aren't where they were 3 years ago across the board but this year has been personally rewarding seeing our efforts pay off finally.  A 207 point increase with EQ especially.  I wish I had found this board a year ago and I woudn't have made some technical errors that I made last year and early this year with app's denied and HP's hammering my TU and EX scores.  I'm in the garden now until next Spring and back to building our savings.  

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[Anonymous]

Congrats on the approvals! I am waiting on my 91/3 with Navy to do this same type of “app spree”. I want to do Amex first, then Lowe’s, then NFCU as well. Did they all pull TU?

[Anonymous]

NFCU: EQ Fico 9 which is what I was expecting after reviewing the Credit Pull database for NFCU in Virginia.  As long as it was EQ or TU I figured I was fine.  

Lowes:TU

Amex: EX

[gdale6]

Grats on the trifecta and welcome to myFico

[Cred4All]

Great job on the progress and staying the course.  Congrats on the approvals!

[Aim_High]

A W E S O M E    J O B ! ! !

   

Sounds like you and your family have been through a lot!  Great job sticking with a plan and making it happen!  Many of us have been through financial trials in our lives so we know how difficult and daunting it can seem.  Hang it there, you can rebuild with time and perserverance.

[M_Smart007]

Congrats!!!, Oh and AverageJoesCredit will love your name TrixR4Kids

[Anonymous]

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@Aim_High wrote:

A W E S O M E    J O B ! ! !

   

Sounds like you and your family have been through a lot!  Great job sticking with a plan and making it happen!  Many of us have been through financial trials in our lives so we know how difficult and daunting it can seem.  Hang it there, you can rebuild with time and perserverance.

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I can see many fellow school of hard knocks graduates as I read these posts.  Being laser focused is what kept from falling off a cliff this go round.  Thanks for the kind words. 

[Anonymous]

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@M_Smart007 wrote:

Congrats!!!, Oh and AverageJoesCredit will love your name TrixR4Kids

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I've been rocking that user name on and off for a very long time.  Their not just for kids you know!! 

[Anonymous]

Congrats on a lot of fronts here - finding a way to weather the job loss and medical bills, keeping everything current, getting the debt paid down, and the trifecta of great approvals. Most of all though, I’m very glad to hear your wife is doing well. That’s a terrifying thing to face - thankfully she is doing well and still with you!