First Credit Card

[MissCredit9]

I think you should apply for a Capital One Quicksilver One. You would get rewards for every purchase to convert into things that might be useful to your situation like cash back. If you get denied you can always go for a secured card or unsecured credit union card. You should at least try for a rewards card at first. One hard pull even if denied will not hurt you much in the long run. Its worth the risk considering the amount of money you will be pumping through the account.

[MissCredit9]

@fargobzn what was your initial credit limit on Cap1 if you dont mind?

[angelcred10]

First step is CHECK YOUR CR

you could even do something like Credit Karma which is not a true representation but will give you an idea of what agencies might look at.

as some other posters have stated, annualcreditreport or wherever that site is should also be part of this process.

If you can avoid something like those Annual Fee cards or cards where you need to basically have a down payment (secured card) that would be ideal.

The one [rewards card] I started with is Capital One Journey (I'm a student however) 

I've since set that as only payment for a few recurring bills (DirecTV and Phone) 

After a few months I definately feel graduated!

[fargobzn]

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@MissCredit9 wrote:

@fargobzn what was your initial credit limit on Cap1 if you dont mind?

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$500 

[Rhaeny]

You can get your reports from free from https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

You can sign up for free to get some monitoring on your credit at Credit Sesame which is Experian or you can use Quizzle 

For TU you can use Credit Karma

You can get your EQ score from here.

But I would start with the annual credit report to see what is on your report.  Then sign up with those free services for monitoring.  Then you will have an idea what your score is and what's on your reports.  The scores from Credit Sesame, Quizzle and Credit Karma are all fake so don't put a whole lot of weight to them.  However the score you buy from here is a real Fico score.  From that point people will be able to give you some better advice as to where to app to avoid unnecessary hard pulls.

[Anonymous]

With the annual credit report website, should I get all of them? Should I get one now just to see where I'm at so that way I can see how much it might improve in say 6 months?

Also, thanks everyone for the advice. I'm reading up as much as I can in my spare time.

[Anonymous]

Well, I've tried two credit scores and can't get either one of them to work. It looks like I have to mail in a bunch of information. I'm trying to figure out what that means other than this will be a long process.

[09Lexie]

It sounds like your identity needs to be verified. You can download the form and mail in your verification documents . They will send you your reports shortly.