New Member Advice

[Anonymous]

First I would like to introduce myself and thank you all for your support. I have been stalking the forums for a couple months. These forums are amazing!! I wanted to kinda tell my story and get some advice. (sorry for the long post)

So…I haven't paid attention to my credit in a long time. I am older and am starting my career and family later in life. I am about to graduate college and will have by BSN and be an RN (yay!!). So I started thinking about my credit as I would like to buy a home say in maybe a couple years.

So it all started with Credit Karma. I expected my scores to be awful as I have A TON of unpaid medical collections. I have about $16K in student loans that are deferred since I am still in school (so they show good  standing and open). I got on and realized my scores weren’t as bad as I expected, but still were in the “poor” range. So I got a WF secured card based on recommendations. Had that card a couple months, Apped for a Cap One QS1 and got a $300 limit--My first unsecured card. I left it at that for a few more months and didn’t worry too much about my score.

I got a free trial to the Experian app. This gave me all 3 real FICO scores. I realized they had come up quite a bit from the 2 cards and on time payments. My scores were up to EQ 667 TU 675 and EX was around 650. I was shocked to see scores in the GOOD range from being in the POOR range!!

I started googling and stumbled on MyFICO forums. I got obsessed reading about how everybody was getting better and better scores and recommending certain cards and companies. I decided to go for it and see what happened.

I apped PenFed Visa Rewards and got approved for $9K SL!!!!!! What???

I got that itch and kept going…… and apped the following approvals.

NFCU $3700 SL

Tried SCT and got Overstock $250 SL and Wayfair $500 SL.

Target RedCard $300 SL

RBFCU $1000 SL

PenFed Power $3K SL

So here is where I need some advice. Some things have shown up on my report and others not. Inquiries are all there. Penfed Rewards is showing with balance. No other new cards are showing. I also did some online disputes and have had a couple things deleted.

So current status:   EQ 636 TU 650 EX 628       /      INQ EQ 3 TU 7 EX 6      /    AAoA has went down & is at 4y8m    

UTI is at 21% since only 1 on the new cards is showing now

Went from $700 TL à $17750 in like about 6 months !!!!!                                     

So…. I should just wait now right? I should watch these new accounts roll in and see if my other disputes come in and see where my scores go right? Aging and good payments plus everything reporting should help right?

I think my goal is to get rid of all medical collections, get scores up above 750, keep utilization down, and just grow in general. I would like a mortgage in a couple years so that is the ultimate goal, but I want to use credit in a responsible way too.

Any advice is appreciated. I thank you all in advance!

[AverageJoesCredit]

Hi Welcome to the forum and congrats on becoming a RN.

Definetly work on your baddies, the collections, and those alone can see some nice results.

Your spree is really nice and getting in with Penfed and Navy is huge. Id recommend taking a breather from apping , head over to garden so you can let all cards report and start building some history of ontime payments . You have enough credit cards and with your student loans you have a nice credit mix. Let your cards grow with some time and patience and youll see some great results. Best of luck going forward

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the forums! Sounds like you're on the right track as much as you possibly can be. My only concern would be getting FR'd since you just picked up so many cards. I would highly recommend heading to the garden right now and let your accounts age. Most accounts won't show on your CR until your first statement. Your utilization will drop but your AAoA will crash when the rest show up, so don't panic when your scores drop a bit next month. Other than that, just keep your utilization down and PIF.

[Anonymous]

you have a good set of TLs and AAoA is solid as well. Keep making payments on time. Take care of those collections. Keep an eye on your util. In 2-3 years you should be golden for a mortgage.

[simplynoir]

Echoing everyone else here in that you're good to go with the credit cards and student loans to maximize your scores with time. Just work on the baddies on your credit report and you'll be sitting pretty when it's time for you to look for a house.

[Appleman]

Remember, additional credit is not an invitation to spend more. You are in debt and need to keep your thinking about the goal of getting out of debtt.

Probably a good time to get YNAB (you need a budget) or some other budgeting software. Congrats on your education and by eliminating debt you can open up some options for graduate school.

[Anonymous]

---

---

I expected my scores to be awful as I have A TON of unpaid medical collections.

Can I ask how many collections you had? I also have a TON, and just wondered. Depending on the bureau, I have between 26 (TU) and 10 (EX or EQ). I've managed to get approved for better cards as time goes on, but I'm still stuck in the mid 600s. Your AAoA is much higher than mine though. I'm only around 10 months.

[Anonymous]

Yes I have about 20ish on each report. Some are old and quite a few are new. I was actually shocked my score got that high and I got approvals with all of those.

It seems the big banks don't like them though cuz I can't really get big bank cards.

I actually have a bunch that originated from one company cuz they did separate charges for things during a hospital stay. So I'm thinking of calling and working out a PFD or goodwill situation.

My FICO 9 scores are considerably better due to them all being medical collections.

But I definitely am going to try to get these taken care of. They really impact your score.

[K-in-Boston]

Congrats on the BSN and welcome to the board!  Echoing everyone else here. join us in the garden.  Given some time to age your new accounts and inquiries, if you can get some or all of those collections gone you are well on your way to home ownership in just a couple of years!

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

It's all very exciting to start this journey. I look forward to gardening and figuring out how to make things as productive as possible.

This community just rocks and I love all the wonderful nuggets on knowledge I've found here!

I'm going to look into PFD on collections. And start paying things down. 😁😁