So let me start of by saying, I wasnt the smartest college kid ever and racked up some credit.
Oh well, is what it is.
Anyway, now I'm smarter and Ive been following MyFico and also The Churning community on Reddit. Very useful information.
In the last year Ive racked up considerable amounts of CC debts, all using new CCs with 0% APRs and 0% Balance Transfers. I finally drove my car into the ground and even though I could have gone for a cheap corolla, I decided to gift myself brand new 50k Wrangler because for 10 years I had been driving used and I was tired of it. I also bought a very nice diamond that I will be gifting (proposing) to my girlfriend next month in a trip to Europe (more CC debt) tha she doesnt know Im even going to. Due to this trip and event, Ive decided to upgrade my camera equipment (I do photography and videography) which was more CC debt.
Again, all of this is knowing my salary and what I can handle plus using the 0% APRs/BTs.
But as Im paying down my debt and throwing almost my entire monthly salary at these CCs before their 0% APR "due date," I kept think, Im not even putting anything away in the bank! Bad scenario, sure my debt will be gone or mostly gone but Ill have no cash.
I signed into my BofA checking the other day and saw a message about a Bankamericard offer for 0% BT/0 BT fee. I thought cool! I applied. Denied. I figured.
I was intrigued about the 0 BT fees though and I didnt want to do another BT with a 3% fee. So I checked out the NFCU Platinum card that has 12 months 0% BT and 0 BT Fees.
Due to the amount of sudden debt that I acquired within a few months, my Credit Score is shot. Its around 690 according to Experian. I applied anyway and first round, the application kept spinning and eventually I was timed out and sent back to login. Tried again and got a "status pending" message. I figured I was out of luck. But as Im editing photos, 15 mins later I get an approval email for 15K!!!!!
Holy smokes! 15k! Ive never had such an instant CL that big. Mostly in the 3-4k range and grow from there.
Anyway, very excited. Im going to consolidate my expiring 0% APR/0% BT balances and transfer them over in the next 30 days and have another year to slowly pay it off. Plan is to do a decent amount of payment, but stashing away the cash. Come due date, Ill throw the entire balance at it at that time...or apply for another 0% BT card lolol
Sorry for the long story!
**** I should state ****
I recently had my mom apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card as I wanted a good travel card for the Europe Proposal trip. She added me as an Authorized user. Also, Discover gave me a nice CL increase as well! Not sure if the CSP helped with all of this or not. Most of my troubles come from the 20 or so auto loans I applied for at the beginning of the year. Yea, I know, thats a lot but 1) I was understanding that if they were all within 45 days, it would only count as "1" but not so true and 2) Even though my standing at the point was good, nobody wanted give me anything less than 10% APR. Finally I found a couple that were around 4-5 and I made them battle each other out and got away with 3.5% but at the expense of 20 different apps
AU
