@Anonymouswrote:
@SouthJamaicawrote:
@simplynoirwrote:Is there a consensus that the NFCU SSL is the best one out there if you're already a member currently right now? Trying to get my two younger sisters' credit started by having a loan reporting and other than the deposit requirement which I can live with I want to get the ball rolling.
I don't think so.
I think this quest is showing that it won't be so easy after all to find a replacement for Alliant.
Hi SouthJ! I think the answer may be yes, given that SimplyNoir has qualified the question with if you're already a member [of Navy] currently right now .
If a person is already a member of Navy, then they have alreday cleared the hurdle of getting into Navy and the possible hard pull for joining (both drawbacks for a non-Navy member). I think what people seem to be saying is that Navy's SS loans work just fine (including early paydown and then keeping them open for the full term). Bear in mind that there does appear to be a minimum loan size of 3k.
I cannot confirm any of this myself from experience. The more people who take Navy out for a true SS loan spin, the better.
Sorry I didn't see the post(s) saying that.
@Anonymouswrote:I have a credit building loan at Alliance Credit Union (MO) https://alliancecu.com/ and they do appear to work with the method you speak of here. At the beginning of my loan, I made payments a little more than normal and it skipped a month, after reading this forum I went ahead and put a larger amount on it now. I had it setup for 18 months for $1,000. Right now my balance on the loan is $41.65 due on 2/27/2020.
The membership is pretty easy to get so long as you do not have anything on ChexSystems and if you did want a checking account with them, they do offer one that's free. I will gladly take any referrals LOL
It's a very limited membership credit union.
@Anonymouswrote:I got a perfect alternative from my college credit union (MITFCU), except for the difference that it has a fixed amount of money in dollar you need to pay for interest. That means, say you get $500 share secured savings loan with 24-month term. Then they calculate interest first so that the total amount you need to pay is say $525 at the end. The monthly payment is calculated by dividing this by the length of your loan.
Here are some interesting points:
- I know.... membership might be too exclusive. But hope other college CUs offer similar plans.
- There is no hard pull inquiry both to join and to open share secured savings loan. (only soft pull for the latter)
- There is no prepayment penalty.
- Paying large amount at once WILL SHORTEN your term. I first paid $100 so it decreases my principal, but the next payment amount was still as calculated before. So if I have to pay $20/mo, it will shorten my term by 5. But!!!
- Once you pay the monthly payment, it shows the next due (1 month far) with the amount. At this point, you should pay exactly that amount. This will delay the due and show again the new amount. You need to repeat this as many as you want. I just checked that this delays the next payment by 7 months so I guess there should be no problem.
- When I first apply this loan for 60-month term, the agent recommended me to shorten this to 24 months because of large interest, and open it again after I pay off the loan. I agreed because it actually makes sense (provided they will offer this loan forever).
- Funny thing is that they borrowed me this "suppoed-to-be-frozen" money to my checking account so I played this game with no cost at all.
To sum up, I just wrote documents and paid $25-ish to boost my credit score for 19 months (-5 for the mistake I made by large payment.) Of course I will repeat this again after that until I get the actual loan.
https://i.imgur.com/wrY1AvS.png
Is MITFCU finally becoming builder/rebuilder friendly? I actually stopped using my MITFCU account because they didn't seem to want to help in that fashion... And hiked their fees....
-J
I don't think so 
The agent I chatted with actually didn't know details about this. She could not explain what's the difference between their SSL and credit builder loan, just reading their web site that I already researched. She even told me every loan does hard pull but the loan manager confirmed me there is no hard inquiry for SSL. And they didn't (want to) understand how my plan works for building credit. I just tried an experiment for fun which turns out to work.
But compared to BoA next to it? Definitely better!