@Anonymous, Hi and Welcome to the forums!
You are off to a great start!
I would just continue what you are doing for one year, then you will be in a very good place.
Slow and Steady wins the credit race
ETA: I totally missed the 88% Self lender, yes as stated downthread, you'll want to pay that below 8.9%
For maximum scoring.
Some great information thanks to Birdman7
@Anonymous wrote:Hello I'm am just just getting into cc game and I am hooked !! Love this page. here's my story
I had no scores no credit as of 5/19. I now have 2 secured CC (Discover it & Citi Secured) and self builder credit loan for 1 year(just opened last month) right now my scores are trans 623, Equifax 622 and experian 681. Trans and Equifax are from credit karma and experian from self vantage 30. What is my best bet as far as paying the credit cards ? The last few months I run them up and pay off before payment date and statement date. I use the card a lot but never report balance. I understand how statement date works. Been reporting $0 Balances on both. Should I leave a 10% balance on one of them ? Also my self loan i owe 88% just made 1 payment. Are these 3 lines good enough or should I try for more ? The goal is obviously get above 700 as soon as possible but I also want to increase my chances of graduating and credit limit increases on the secured cards. I don't want to do anything that requires HP. Please let me know what you think. Look forward to the comments. Thank you!
Yes they're enough unless you have negatives that are holding you back.
The way to optimize your FICO 8's with what you've got is:
1. Pay one card off before statement date.
2. Let the other card report a small balance, not exceeding 9% of the limit, and then pay it off right after the statement date.
3. Pay your loan down to 9% of the loan amount, then make small payments for as long as possible.
I would recommend reading the below from ABCD2199
The Truth about Credit Card Utilization
My 11 Rules to Credit Rebuilding
FICO Score: What to pay down first?
1st welcome to the forum, 2nd your on to a great start. 👍👍
Just remember "credit game" is very slow and every little move takes one month 😏
Try to get your FICO score. Almost everything is based on that. CK uses Vant for scoring that is not really useful.
Discover should provide you with FICO Score 8 TU
Citi gives FICO Score Equifax, but not sure on all cards!
Experian gives you FICO 8 in their site for free.
@Anonymous wrote:Ok thank you I really appreciate the great feed back. My only question with my self lender how do I pay it down and still honor the 12 month agreement ? Won't it look bad if I don't go thru the full 1 year of payment history ? I was hoping countdown pay it down and then just pay like a few bucks a month but not sure how to go about it. I will read the recommend stuff below. Thanks again. It's really addicting once u get the scores rolling lol
To my understating, you can not pay Self in advance without shortening the term. Just pay as you normally do.
@Anonymous wrote:Ok thx. That's what I thought about the self. Kind of dissapointed i did get it but maybe will be helpful. I though5 1 installment with 2 credit cards would be good start. A little more about my report I may have left out is I have 0 derogatories or charge offs or even late payments. My credit was squeaky clean just lacking As I did not have anything 3 months ago. Also before self lender was 673 and dropped to 623 on credit karma. Dissapointing🤦🏻♂️ but I know the 673 wasn't true anyways just part of rebuilding process I guess.
$1 you can obtain your 3 bureau FICO 8 scores and reports at Experian or CreditCheckTotal (part of Experian). Cancel in 7 day or less to avoid the re-occurring monthly charge. Wash, Rinse, and Repeat as needed.
AnnualCreditReport. Free weekly 3 bureau online reports through April 2021.
Free credit reports (disregard the VantageScore 3.0 score) at:
Credit Karma for weekly TU and EQ reports.
WalletHub for daily TU report.