Welcome back and thanks for sharing your success! What a huge difference in scores in 4years eh? always great to hear these awesome stories, congrats on your journey.
Congrats to your continued success 
@RockySC wrote:First, a quick backstory if that is alright. I posted here almost five years ago back in 2009 just a month after I met my then girlfriend. You can go back and read my original thread at the following link, but I posted it under a different username. Back then I had a credit score of just 595. When I came back last week or so I had no memory of having posted that thread or ever being here before. I've already called customer service about the double account and it has been taken care of. Anyway, here is the thread from five years ago...
The big point in mentioning all of that is that back then my credit score was a 595. Looking back I remember it all now, buy my God I can't believe I was in that kind of shape back then. Since then all of the damage on my history has finally fallen off. I married my then girlfriend back in October of 2011 and to my shock I was able to pass the credit check for the apartment on my own. After we got married we continued with keeping up with payments, never late, but we did end up having to use a few credit cards at the very start and before we knew it we owed a few thousand in credit card bills. Then fast forward to May of last year we decided we were ready to buy our first home. We searched, found one, and we closed in September. At that time, almost to my surprise, my credit score was up all the way to 740 and my wife was around 750. Even with the dept we had to create, we paid everything on time and I raised my score considerably over those five years. I should also mention that, thankfully, before we officially closed we were able to pay off ALL of our credit cards so I'm sure that helped a great deal.
I'll also mention that the first credit card that I got approved for to help me start repairing that 595 number from back in 2009 was the Best Buy store card with a tiny $300 or $400 and a $69 or so annual fee. I'll always be thankful for that one, but I did close it after we officially closed on our house.
After all of that, late last year I started seeing more about the rewards cards. I made the decision that we were going to start using credit cards the proper way to actually benefit from them instead of them hurting us or making us feel like we're drowning. I decided to apply for the following, and got approved for each...
-AMEX Blue Cash Everyday ($150 sign up bonus)
-Chase Freedom ($200 sign up bonus)
-Discover It ($150 sign up bonus)
For January I have been using the Chase Freedom card. Today the $200 sign up bonus hit my account as well as the other $11 for our purchases of gas, movie theaters, and our monthly bills. My plan is, for now, to use each card for their specific bonuses and categories and use CF for our monthly bills to get that bonus, for February to use AMEX BCE for our monthly bills to get that bonus, and then for March to use Discover It to reach that bonus (and use each card consistently for the benefits of each). Then, once I have the sign up bonus for each, I'm going to pick one to use as my permanent card for monthly bills and then just leave it at that. Just from doing so here in January I feel more financially free than I have in YEARS, if not ever, by having all of our bills be automatically paid on a single credit card and then just have it be paid off all at the same time.
One thing I can't explain is how we seem to have more money in our bank account, putting more into savings, at this point in the month than we normally do. Maybe by using the credit cards we're being more selective of how we spend with them or maybe it's something else I'm not sure, but that sure seems to be the case.
Anyway, hopefully this will help us build our credit even more so. I'm looking at 800 and above now and I never thought I'd ever even have the chance to get to that point. Especially not back in 2009 with a score of 595.
I have a number of other cards like a BoA rewards card, then a number of store cards like Sam's Club, Walmart, Best Buy, Belk, etc... but the three I mentioned above are now our primary cards for the rewards.
So thanks guys, this forum has been incredibly helpful for me. Just thought I'd share my story and, yeah, blatantly admit that you all have me hooked now. Way to go.
Cool post and congrats on the marriage and the credit accomplishments!
Congrats on your journey! Thanks for sharing.
Discover IT $17k / US Bank Ace (VSig) $13.5K / US Bank Cash+ (VSig) $13.5k
@RockySC wrote:Thanks! I'm trying to decide where to go from here, if I need any other cards, if I need to cut back, etc... The usual questions we all ultimately ask I suppose.
I'm sure sometime when you least expect it, You'll see some cards with 5% cash back that you could probably use. Perhaps some more blue cards. Just make sure you wait a few months between mini app sprees.
Yep, look for some blue cards. They may be closer than you think.
