Long time Luker first time poster ... (question on monitoring subscription)

[Anonymous]

Hello World! 

I have a question.  I filed Chapter 7 in Dec 2017 and it was discharged in Mar 2018 -- Long Story Short accumulated many medical bills and fell for the Wells Fargo Home Morgtgage well we can't help you cause you are current so you need to be late and we will modify your loan thing. Well in the end I will just say I saved my house (yes I was stupid and did not save the payments I did not make) but had to file a 7. Good thing is that all of my debt was wiped. 

I have been earnestly trying to rebuild and when I started tracking my scores were: TU 558, EF: 558 & EX 608. These were from online monitoring I had with Credit Karma and Wells Fargo and there for not really "true scores".  I am currently at TU: 676, EF: 662, and EX: 645. Since the discharge I have a subprime auto loan (18%), I did not want too but I had to as I had to let my auto go back to the CU it was financed from.  I now have 3 cards CapOne unsecured,  USAA Secured Amex, Secured Discover (Just added, have not received it yet) and a subprime loan.  My now my oldest account is 16 years (mortgage) and my CU left surrendered auto loan (4 years old)  as open/paid/good standing on 2 reports and open/paid/derogatory on one.  I am leaving this alone as I think it is doing me more good atm than bad but will dispute it in the future.

I know that my CBR is going to look like an EKG printout for a while.  So knowing that should I invest in a credit monitoring subscription or should I wait for a while? I am done appplying/getting cards I am going to keep these for a min of a year and not mess with my credit at all.

My plan/goal is to pay off the subprime loan once it hits 12 months old and then hopefully have enough cash to refinance my car with a CU and get rid of the high interest rate. 

Any advice would be great.   

[CGeorge]

I went through some really, really rough times - financial ills in 2009 and then a foreclosure on a rental property in 2015. After the foreclose in April, 2015, my credit score was 537 - my credit was trashed. I began monitoring my credit - for free. I signed up with Credit Karma, Nerd Wallet, Wallet Hub and Credit Sesame. Note that Wallet Hub updates your credit score daily. I don't think that you need to pay for a credit monitoring service - these free ones will keep you on top of your scores. My credit score is now 747. It was a long haul, but I raised my score by 210 points in just over three years. I never wanted or applied for a secured card - I built my credit with the "sub-prime" unsecured cards. Yes, I would pay the outragious initial fees, but, then, this was the price, I figured, of repairing my credit. I would charge, and then go home and pay it off - immediately, before the statement cut-off date. I built and increased my available credit - and kept utilization the lowest I could go. Right now, I have a little over $125,000 of available revolving credit - but my utilization is right at 1%. I have never subscribed to "don't apply for new credit". Shoot, my credit was so trashed, what were multiple hard inquiries going to do to make it any worse? I went for it, and kept my percentage of utilization always below 5%. That is what has boosted my score. I feel for you on the sub-prime car loan - I had one, too. They are horrible. Good luck to you!

[Anonymous]

@cgeorge I apoligize I thought that I replied to this some time ago ..  

I appreciate your response and first off GRATZ on rebuilding!

I did opt not to pay for tracking as I am in the gardening phase right now.  I added x2 Affirm loans to my credit and that is it.  A small $400 to pay if in a year (in month 3 right now) and a $1900 to pay off in 2 years first payment due this month.  Bad thing about Affirm is that they only report to Exp and not TU/EQ. 

Current scores: 
Vantage Scores: 
TU: 694
EQ: 691
EX: 667

FICO
EQ-PenFed FICO9: 671 (July 2, 2018)
EX-Wells Fargo FICO9: 692 (July 10, 2018)
TU-Discover FICO 8: 647 (August 18, 2018)

Current Cards/Loans
$400.00 CC: Capital One (unsecured) 4 months
$1250.00 CC: USAA Amex (secured) 4 months
$500.00 CC: Discover (secured) 3 months
$24,xxx Auto Loan: 5 months

$101k Mortgage: 16 years current but only showing on Equifax & Experian as current (shows discharged on TU)
$5,6xx Personal Loan  3 months (x2 year term) 
$337 Personal Loan  (x1 year term) (Exp only current  3 months) <-- I can pay this off but choosing to leave it on there for the year

$1,9xx Personal Loan (x2 year term) will only be on Experian to be added

CC utilization is right at 4% 

Hopefully the above get me over 700 across the board in time. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

... I added x2 Affirm loans to my credit and that is it.  A small $400 to pay if in a year (in month 3 right now) and a $1900 to pay off in 2 years first payment due this month.  Bad thing about Affirm is that they only report to Exp and not TU/EQ.

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Why did you take out the two loans?  Did you need the money for some reason?

I like your idea of not paying money for a monthly credit monitoring service, given your particular situation.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I did opt not to pay for tracking as I am in the gardening phase right now.  I added x2 Affirm loans to my credit and that is it.  A small $400 to pay if in a year (in month 3 right now) and a $1900 to pay off in 2 years first payment due this month.  Bad thing about Affirm is that they only report to Exp and not TU/EQ. 

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Another bad thing about Affirm is that it's a CFA (Consumer Financing Account).

[Anonymous]

Well I took out a 5800 personal loan to take care of some items not covered in the BK that I needed to take care of.  I took out the x2 affirm loans well because it was offered, I have the money set aside in a savings account to pay them off on short notice if I needed too. I figured I would eat the interest in hopes of getting my score up faster. Even though I have what I would consider a high score for being less than 9 months post BK, the BK public record throws a slap back to reality.

I just plan on gardening this for the next year. If that is advisable that is. 

[Anonymous]

Yeah I thought about that but my current auto loan is with Prestige so that is as CFA as you can get next to Drive Time or JD Byrider. First thing I am planning on doing is having it refinanced with my credit union however they require a min of 1 year post BK to even start the consideration process. I am predicting that I am going to have to add about a 6k down payment to get the refinance loan balance down to something they will refinance. I am eagerly waiting for that day! I am going deeper into the hole with car every month after making 5 payments totaling $2,897.25 only $897.42 has been applied to interest.  I have already been approved for a refinance through CapOne Auto but that only brings the interest down to 13% from 17% and I would have to drop my wife from the loan all together. I told her we would wait until Jan/Feb or to apply for the CU refinance option.

Me getting the x2 Affirm loans was to help build as I see something is better than nothing even with the slight hit that comes from a CFA.  However this will will be my last affirm loan as they tie in the interest into the actual loan. What I mean by that is I borrowed $1900 they closed the loan out at $2500 so paying off early would not have a huge effect. I do plan on paying a large chunk of it down in November  prior to the auto refinance I was thinking down to 30% - 40%. 

Yes, I know that I am throwing some money away but I originally thought that Affirm reported to all 3 CRAs.