SEVERE credit limit decrease HELP

[Anonymous]

The people who have 20 cards whose signatures you see have them with different lenders, not one lender

[Anonymous]

Nice advice, deepkc.

[luxeprw9]

I don't have any store cards so I'm not sure if this is an option but  going forward you should consider setting up automatic payments.  If it is an option, you could set it up to pay the minimum due.  That way if something like this happens again, you will be covered.

Seems like you are on the edge financially.  A little bit of unsolicited advice -  sometimes being credit card debt free and not worrying about credit can be an enormous stress reliever.  Instead of trying to build credit (right now), maybe take a year off from the credit game and build an emergency fund and live off of cash.  Trust me, not being at the mercy of banks and credit scores, is life altering!  The opportunity to build credit is a marathon, not a sprint.  Taking a break, clearing your mind and having cash will help you in the long run.

I hope everything works out for you!

[Jesi]

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@Anonymous wrote:
The people who have 20 cards whose signatures you see have them with different lenders, not one lender

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Yes I know but someone said that having more than 15 cards even with other lenders is insane. A lot of people have more than one or 2 credit cards.

[Anonymous]

Also like your advice, luxeprw.

[Jesi]

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@luxeprw9 wrote:

I don't have any store cards so I'm not sure if this is an option but  going forward you should consider setting up automatic payments.  If it is an option, you could set it up to pay the minimum due.  That way if something like this happens again, you will be covered.

Seems like you are on the edge financially.  A little bit of unsolicited advice -  sometimes being credit card debt free and not worrying about credit can be an enormous stress reliever.  Instead of trying to build credit (right now), maybe take a year off from the credit game and build an emergency fund and live off of cash.  Trust me, not being at the mercy of banks and credit scores, is life altering!  The opportunity to build credit is a marathon, not a sprint.  Taking a break, clearing your mind and having cash will help you in the long run.

I hope everything works out for you!

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Definitely will never do auto payments, that will lead to bounced payments, it wouldn't lead to be me being covered if the money isn't there, that's more for people that get paid the same amount every week and can budget that in. Our income changes week to week, like last week because of the weather my husband was only at work Monday. They told him to stay home because they coudln't work Tuesday through Friday. His paycheck is going to be horribly low this coming up week so had I not paid the bills ahead and let them go through when they were due we'd be in a lot of trouble. Plus I'd be paying more interest by paying them on the due date. I prefer to just pay them myself and usually early to keep the interest being charged as low as possible. I'm working towards being debt free, I can't really do that without building at the same time because I have a couple cards with high interest rates that are getting difficult to pay down. I really can't do any emergency fund until I pay the debt off that I have otherwise it will never go away with the interest rates they have.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry about the CLD, but let me see if I understand. So you owed $472, not $25. $25 is the MIN due. If you only pay the min, you get hit with interest. So first thing is pay it off, and never pay for things you can't pay when the statement hits. And paying it off fully will drop your utilization, thereby bringing back up your credit score. Utilization is reported each month and resets so not the biggest problem in credit.

Second, don't wait until the due date to pay a card, pay immediately when you get the statement. I check my accounts once every week or two and pay if the statement hit. There are times where I have to wait until a week before the due date to pay the card, but I pay it. The wind and snow storms were well covered on the news BEFORE they hit, so you could have played it safe and paid before the storm.

I personally have my cards spread out to the 8th, 15th, and 22nd of each month (or close enough if the card doesn't allow that exact date). Rotating categories on the 22nd, flat rewards on the 15th, and 8th for everything else (specilized cards). Doing this allows me to pay on time and make sure that all my bills are spread out. Perhaps it would help you.

[Anonymous]

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@Jesi wrote:

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@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Blue envelope is Synchronys way of asking for income verification that usually results in them closing all accounts even if they get it.

I definitely agree with Donny on trying to pay before due date as it can be beneficial to you if anything sudden arrises. Good tip

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I always pay before the due date, my husband's job isn't bringing in the hours that it normally does, nothing anyone can do about that, when the work is there we have more money, when the work isn't there the hours are less and we have to pay bills closer to their due date and choose food over credit card bills being paid early. It's not a salary job.

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I agree, you should feed your family before paying a credit card bill.

But don't complain about the consenquences.

[Anonymous]

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@Jesi wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Fifteen Synchrony cards?!

I agree with happypill - that's way too many. In fact, having 15 cards at all is probably too many, but then I'm playing it conservatively these days when it comes to credit, having learned some hard lessons from my past mistakes. I only have one Synchrony card (Amazon Store Card), because I buy a lot of stuff there; I was considering getting CareCredit (also Synchrony) but decided against it because I've seen too many negative stories about that card here and elsewhere.

But we're really not talking about me. I do understand that you faced serious issues with your power being off for 6 days and the nearest Gap store where you could pay being an hour away, but again, I have to ask; wasn't there any other way you could have gotten online - gone to a friend (I understand you have no family living nearby) or neighbor who did have electricity and was willing to let you log on to their computer or power up to use your own device, or done the payment from work if you had access to a computer there and your work wasn't too sticky about personal use? I genuinely am having a hard time seeing how you had no alternatives whatever in this situation.

P.S. I also understand you're upset and under stress, but there's no need to be snippy with people who are trying to help you...

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Fifteen is probably an exaggeration, my husband and I are authorized users on each other's cards as well. I see several people with signatures of cards showing they have 20 or more. Gotta build credit somehow and this was how we were able to buy our car, we had a lot of cards with no balance on them and high credit limits.

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Forget about what everybody else does and have for credit products. Worry about yourself please.

[Anonymous]

"The people who have 20 cards whose signatures you see have them with different lenders, not one lender "

This ^^ 

Diversify your lenders.