Quite a productive week for a Newbie!!!!

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I am pretty new to the forums here and wanted to share some of my successes from last week. I had always been pretty timid when I came to credit. But, finding this board, lurking for awhile, and reading about all of you all's successes made me want to break out of my shell and actively go after increasing credit limits and applying for new cards to broaden my credit base. So, here is what I did last week:

I already had these card's

- Amazon store card: SL $800. First CLI requested via chat and boosted to $2000. A couple of days later, pressed the CLI button on website and requested $10,000. got $6000.

- Walmart Store Card: SL $500. First CLI requested via chat and boosted to $2000. Same day as above, pressed the CLI button on website and requested $10,000. got $6000.

- eBay Mastercard: SL $300. First CLI requested via chat and boosted to $2000. Same day as above, pressed the CLI button on website and requested $10,000. got $6000.

Found a site that listed a comprehensive lists of Comedity and Synchrony credits and applied for store's that I know that I would shop at.

- Crate & Barrel - SL $2000

- Zales - SL $2000

- Overstock.com: SL $1150, on website requested a CLI a couple of days later and boosted to $1950

- BP VISA: SL $1,200

- Lowe's Store Card: SL $1000

- Kohl's Store Card: SL $300, is this normal??

In addition,

- Navy Federal CU cashRewards: SL $500

- Bank of America Cash Rewards: SL $2000

- Blispay VISA: SL $1000

Pretty much at the same time I closed the following cards 

Credit One Mastercard: SL $600, ending CL $800, only 1.4 year's old. Probably shouldn't have closed it, but I hate this company!!

Milestone Card: SL $300, ending CL $300. Age of card 7 months

Indigo Card: : SL $300, ending CL $300. Age of card 7 months 

Now that I look at this, it seems like a whole lot of cards all at one time. But, my thinking is that this will help my credit utilization a whole lot and all of the inquiries will all fall off of my credit report all at the same time.

What are everyone else's thought's?

[Anonymous]

Congrats on your approvals.

Now that you have majors with NFCU and BoA, I’d focus on nurturing those and give your Comenity and Synchrony cards time to grow organically. Both of the latter, have been known to render adverse action with too much activity.

Navy and BoA can potentially grow like weeds in time. Nice pick ups.

Can you provide current data points such as scores, utilization, AAoA? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

@4theLoveofPoints - Thank you for the recommendations and I will plan to do just that!

Credit score's as of 2/20/18

TU 692

EX 690

EQ 639 <-- One old Baddie that I am working on getting taken off

Utilization 2/20/18 was kinda high due to a couple of household and car expenses. Hopefully, with these new limits and what I have paid, Utilization should go down to around 10% - 12%

TU 48%

EX 46%

EQ 47%

AAoA approx 3.6 years. Never had BK... I just didn't use or have many credit cards very much in the past.

Let me know if I missed something...

[Anonymous]

Based on your decreased overall utilization, you’ll probably see a score boost that nullifies or overrides the inquires and new account dings. Kudos.

[Anonymous]

That is exactly what I was hoping for!

Approx how does it take for all of this to finally show up across all of the credit bureau's? What I mean is all of the limits to finally show up, the utilization to stablize, and the FICO scores to be updated to take all of this into effect. I am think 2-3 months?

[thornback]

wrote:
Based on your decreased overall utilization, you’ll probably see a score boost that nullifies or overrides the inquires and new account dings. Kudos.

I don't know if the utilization boost will outweight the AAoA ding.   You were at 42 months with 6(?) cards and now you've added 9 more.  So you dropped your AAoA from 42 months to 32 months (2.8 years);   dropping below the 3 year AAoA mark could hurt quite a bit.  Hopefully, you'll break just about even. 

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@Anonymouswrote:

That is exactly what I was hoping for!

Approx how does it take for all of this to finally show up across all of the credit bureau's? What I mean is all of the limits to finally show up, the utilization to stablize, and the FICO scores to be updated to take all of this into effect. I am think 2-3 months?

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When everything will report depends on the lenders, but probably over the next 30-45 days.    Your FICO scores will update as each change occurs; it will take 3-6 months after all changes have been reported for scores to stabalize and begin recovering any lost points. 

[thornback]

Whoops - 

I meant to congratulate you on your CLIs  - great job there!  Also congrats on the gain of NFCU, BOA, and Blispay (does Blispay report to bureaus?) - those are very good for the long term.   And good call on closing Credit One, Milestone, and Indigo. 

I, personally, would have stayed away from all of the new store cards -- only because your cash reward bank cards will likely provide a decent amount of cashback when used at the stores at which you regularly shop.   Just seems as though you may have given yourself a lot more to manage with very little favorable return.  But... to each is own.   Hopefully they will each benefit your spending in a uniquely positive way (coupons, discounts, etc.).   

[Anonymous]

@tmr - Thanks for all of the useful information. You are probably right about the store cards, but I am really hoping that long term that will continue to give me a wide credit base and keep the utilization down if I have to purchase something big on the Cash Reward cards. Only time will tell though...

[Anonymous]

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@thornback

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When everything will report depends on the lenders, but probably over the next 30-45 days.    Your FICO scores will update as each change occurs; it will take 3-6 months after all changes have been reported for scores to stabalize and begin recovering any lost points. 

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Still being new to establishing better FICO scores and trying to keep everything managable. I don't really mind waiting for 3-6 months, because it will be exciting to see how this all turns out. I am also seeing on the forums here that there is a "Gardening Club", which I am thinking that am joining today!!! 

[thornback]

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@Anonymouswrote:

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@thornback

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When everything will report depends on the lenders, but probably over the next 30-45 days.    Your FICO scores will update as each change occurs; it will take 3-6 months after all changes have been reported for scores to stabalize and begin recovering any lost points. 

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Still being new to establishing better FICO scores and trying to keep everything managable. I don't really mind waiting for 3-6 months, because it will be exciting to see how this all turns out. I am also seeing on the forums here that there is a "Gardening Club", which I am thinking that am joining today!!! 

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Yess... Join the Gardening Club.  Gardening would be a very smart (and necessary) move...     You're best bet is to let your new accounts age for at least a year before applying to anything new... the club will offer some support in staying strong and away from new apps in case you have itchy trigger fingers.   

Enjoy your new cards & limits!