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What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

My wife got injured at work. Ended up being forced onto a short term leave of absence which turned into long term. Two months later I was injured and ended up on a short term LoA. We were both receiving 60% of our paychecks for around 6 months. Then she was receiving nothing and I had to take a new, lower paying job. One income meant we were living on credit cards to make ends meet.
Message 11 of 62
CA4Closure
Regular Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

Foreclosure Halloween 2011. I was evicted by the Sheriffs department. It all began in 2004. Lost my job and taking care of my elderly father. My siblings never helped me and I had to take a lot of time off work to attend to my father's needs. Pressure from this attributed to work related issues which eventually got me fired. I couldn't find a decent job that paid well but I eeked out a living barely making ends meet.

As my father became more fragile, I was forced to hire a live in aide at $4,000/month. I had to take a second mortgage out on the house and I could not repay this. During this time Obama had a program to help people like me but numerous applications were lost. I reached out to Wells Fargo who held the loan on my house for help. I lost the house close to Halloween 2011 and I was living in a Days Inn at $1,100/month. I maxed out my Capital One VISA card but found housing in January 2012.

The foreclosure ruined me financially as I lost my life savings in that home. The house was virtally turn key. The investor who bought the house bought it cheap I owed $200,000 and he turned it around and sold it for $650,000. When this occurred my FICO score was 320. Fast forward to today my FICO score across all credit bureaus is between 819 and 842.

 

Message 12 of 62
calyx
Super Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?


@Anonymous wrote:

Mine is probably more of a build than a rebuild.

 

Just always have paid cash for everything my life.  Finally decided to care one day (looking ahead to possible house purchase.)  Started looking around, found this place.  Now it is my thing.


I'm the same - not so much Rebuilding as "Building late in Life"  and it's MyFico's fault (Thanks!)

I pretty much cash-onlied everything (except my cars) most of my life, the one exception is a store card and a credit card from college which were closed out from the cessation of existence by both companies (bank and store).   While married my ex opened all kinds of credit accounts, didn't pay bills, and engaged in other 'shenanigans' during our marriage, which wrecked my report.  Unfortunately we were in a community property state, so there was little I could do about it.  I can't be mad at lenders/collection agencies for (legally) trying to get their money back, even if I was not involved.

The divorce finalized a little over 8 years when I pulled my credit reports just to clean it up.  I really wanted a honest, clean report, and to be able to finance a new auto loan if it became necessary.  My feeling (and suggestions from a friend in the mortgage industry) was since I could cash-only my life (sure, bad credit required additional deposits, but that was never an issue), I would just wait out the SOL/7y+6m timeline and then pull my reports and mop up whatever was left.     The only negatives on my report that were my own doing was defaulting on student loan ages ago (when the ex was in charge of household finances - but I can't blame them too much, it was still my ultimate responsibility), which had/has been brought current.

In retrospect, I wish I had kept on top of my reports, because I'm still getting erroneous stuff deleted (both fraudulent accounts and incorrect addresses/information thanks to said former spouse) and it might have been easier to do it as it happened.

When searching for information on dealing with erroneous info and the CRAs, I kept running across MyFico and started reading a lot here.   I learned about how important your entire credit profile can be, and it's not just about keeping negative stuff off.  So I opened a few accounts, and I have a much more robust plan moving forward.   Because I never learned to rely on credit, I have no problem being a transactor.  So now I'm building credit history, increasing my FICO scores, protecting my bank account (by not using debit cards) and gaining cashback or other benefits from using credit cards.   

Happy practitioner of AZE7or8or9or10 | Team Finances > FICO
Message 13 of 62
Physh1
Frequent Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

Bad personal decisions along with primary job loss & a prolonged court situation led to me defaulting & nearly filing bk. I struggled for 7-8 years with no credit & trying to make headway where I could. I was in the 790-810 range before all of that...dropped way down into the low 500's & now I'm floating in the high 780's-790's...

Message 14 of 62
HindSight_20_20
Frequent Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

@physh1

Inspiring! Thank you. How many years did it take to get back to the 700's after your setback?

Goal Score: EX 700|TU 700|EQ700

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Message 15 of 62
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

Ignorance and bad luck for me.
 
I had 4 different accounts go from clean to dirty in the span of 1.5 years or so.  At the time I knew nothing about credit, never looked at reports or any CMS, so I had no idea that any of the accounts were in bad standing.  2 of them were joint accounts that I co-signed on and the individuals making the payments were careless and missed some.  One stopped paying all together at one point.  The other 2 there weren't joint accounts (my own accounts) were a mortgage and a finance account for some furniture.  I double paid my mortgage one month and asked the lender to apply my extra payment to the following month.  They didn't do as I requested and the account reported late 2 months later.  The finance account I had something like 12 months of 0% interest to pay it off.  I paid the thing off 6 months early, at least I thought I did, but short paid the final payment by $2.93 somehow.  The account ended up reporting late for $2.93.  My mistake on that one, but it honestly was pretty silly considering the dollar amount.
 
Anyway, due to ignorance those 4 clean accounts went dirty (120 days, 90 days, 60 days, 60 days) so my rebuild involved getting those 4 accounts back to clean status.  It took nearly a year, but with a heavy GW letter campaign I had 100% success. 
Message 16 of 62
AverageJoesCredit
Legendary Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

Great thread OPSmiley Happy. Its just really humbling reading others stories . Amazing to see people come back from crazy life eventsSmiley Happy
Message 17 of 62
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

I had a good job and made decent money. I was overspending like crazy though because I liked to buy other people things. I did keep it all together (never late on anything, car lots even said I could do whatever I wanted because my score was so good).

I did realize though that I was in too deep and starting to drown. I started chipping away at my debt and I was making good progress working my way out of the huge hole when I realized my health wasnt going to allow me to work anymore.

So, I filed for disability and I filed BK. I have just begun my credit rebuild and know a lot more now about credit than I ever did before... thanks to yall on this board.

Message 18 of 62
Physh1
Frequent Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?


@HindSight_20_20 wrote:
@physh1

Inspiring! Thank you. How many years did it take to get back to the 700's after your setback?

It was around 2008ish that things went south for me. Everything happened at once...it was def rough...I started working 3 low paying part time jobs that were willing to work with my oddball schedule due to court dates, lawyer meetings, etc. I paid what I could but I was financially in the hole with no 'real' job. Around March of 2016, after being a cash only guy for all those years, I was able to start making forward progress as some of my negatives fell off...

 

I was just into the 600's when I started rebuilding with a Cap1 quicksilver card & a Sync Amazon store card. By October-ish of 16 I was in with Citi, BofA, & Discover. Everything was sub $1000 limits but I let them all grow with good use & payment history. By mid 2017 I was back in with Chase, limits were increasing, Barclays approved me, etc...by the end of 17 I was in the mid 700's...

 

Since the end of 17 I've been laying low-ish...just letting things mature, letting inquiries age off, & I've started to prune down a little, merging lines, & focusing on card combos that work for me.

 

Overall, I really thought back in 08 that my chances of a decent credit life was down the toilet. I had a choice when stuff hit the fan...it was either letting some of my cards default or letting my timeshare loan default. I kept the timeshare loan current...some cards defaulted. I believe that keeping my timeshare current helped me HUGE in aiding my rebuild. I don't recall my thought process back then, as much of my memory of events were focused on larger issues, but I do believe is has impacted my rebuild process positively.

 

So, to consolidate my answer to your question...really took 10 years total to get back into the 700's...8 years or so of lying low & doing nothing with credit & ~2 years of actual credit work to crack 700. I'm hoping by end of 19 to be touching 800.

Message 19 of 62
HindSight_20_20
Frequent Contributor

Re: What Caused You To Have to Rebuild?

@Workin4abetterFICO
Cash for everything is still a goal for me as well, even while rebuilding.

No one ever ask me for for an ID on large purchases when pulling out cash...

Goal Score: EX 700|TU 700|EQ700

Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge



HiltonHonors AMEX 2K | Amazon Store CC $800 | Bed Bath & Beyond 2K | Lowes CC 11K | Cap 1 Secured $500 | Cap 1 Plat $300 | Cap 1 Savor 1K |Citi Secured $200 | Target $500 | Kohl's $1K | Truist Cashback 4.5K | Penfed Power Cash Back 3.5K |Apple Pay CC 3K | Venmo Sig Visa 7.5K | SECU 13.5K | Bragg Mutual FCU 10K | Best Buy Citi Visa $2.5K | DiscoverIT CB 11.5K
Message 20 of 62
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