little background (hope it helps)
wife and I have switched roles in family finance.
she used to take care of everything.
2013 we had a rough patch. My company went bankrupt and employees had to scramble to find work elsewhere. Less than a year later someone stole my debit card info and somehow charged about $16,000 to a car rental agency and TD Bank allowed it, fun times getting declined for a $3 coffee while traveling work and finding out that account was cleaned out and that a low limit Capital One card was all that I had until the bank finished the investigation and of course....looking at figuring out banking and payroll in the meantime.
We almost didn't make it through the headaches and hardships. Really changed our outlook on finance. Unfortunately I had my student loans go delinquent during this time (word from experienced - don't ever try to use a Chase or BoA prepaid card's routing and account info to auto pay bills like student loans or gym memberships, it doesn't work and sometimes it takes a while for the banks and merchants to recognize this and inform you....or if you do this, make sure you pay attention and notice that funds are not being deducted)
long story short, wife used to be super on top of things and I was clueless. Past few years I've been super vigilant about paying balances down, I've probably been a bit too aggressive with aquiring tradelines but I've kept the balances down - definitely staying away from pyramiding.
She actuallly missed a few payments by a few days(worst case less than 30 days) over the past few years and for whatever reason refuses to set up auto pay, save passwords, etc. so I've decided to step up and takeover keeping track of her 8 or so tradelines and my 13
this weekend we looked into SP CLIs. here are the results
BoA Americard - $1,900 initial; $5,800 new total (age 10 months)
Kohl's - $300 initial; $700 new total (age 2 years)
Ann Taylor - $250 initial; $750 new total (age 1.25 years)
Discover IT - $6,000 initial; $9,000 new total (age 6 months)
Macy's - $2300 initial; $3,800 new total (age 11 years)
Nordstrom - $500 initial; $3800 new total (age 1 year)
Bloomingdale's - $1800 initial; $4300 new total (age 1 year)
She never applied for a credit line increase before on any accounts except for Macy's. She once forgot to pay for about 25 days in 2012 and they lowered her limit to like $900. I called in and asked for a CLI over the phone begging to get the limit back up, didn't even know what a formal CLI request was at the time, just thought I was escalating an issue.
She's pretty pumped at the extra spending power for Bloomingdale's and I believe finally buying into the "credit building game." We are both immigrants and come from a system where credit is simply measured by whether or not you have negative history. The idea of having to use credit to have credit is a different concept that she really just hasn't bought into until recently.
Still going to watch the spending, PIF, etc. but it will be nice to be able to put spend on a card and have the extra room to not have to worry about making in-cycle payments to rig the utilization game.....
if you guys want any additional DPs feel free to ask
