Hi All,
I wanted to consolidate all of outstanding credit card balances (7 cards) and one PLOC balance. The total outstanding balances for all accounts were $7215. I have been getting pre-approved offers from Lending Club weekly for at least 2 years that were always for ridiculous APR's and orgination fees so I never applied with them. I also checked in this kind of loan on the Upstart platform in December 2021 where I was approved but at a ridiculous APR. So I just happened to logon to Credit Karma on 1/8/2022 to check on my updates there and once again I see an offer from Upstart. I am not sure why but I went through their platform-which is super fast regardless of what rates are offered-and this time I applied for an $8400 Loan (the extra $ was a cushion) and boom-I was pre-approved for the loan I applied for but this time the APR was 5.52 with a $390.26 Origination Fee. I was like WTH-HAHAH. I thought about it for a few minutes before submitting the full application that is definitely a HP on both EQ & TU but I was appoved for the same exact loan at terms provided in the pre-approval. The funds were disbursed to my Schwab Checking account & received on 1/11/2021 and I paid all of the revolving accounts I had down to ZERO.
Now the TILA for this loan says the APR for it is 7.5% but I don't care. While I normally balk at paying any kind of bank fee at all-the Orgination Fee I paid for this Loan was worth it my specific case and regardless of the TILA 7.5 APR - the actual APR I am paying on the the $8009.74 in loan funding I received is still 5.52. It's not 27% or 22% or even 14%. I did NOT sign up for Auto Debit as I refuse to do that for any Loan or Lending product and have never had it in place for any lending I have ever had in my life-that's in excess of 15 car loans and god knows how many other loans/credit products. I inherited my home -so I have never ever had a mortgage and never plan to have one-so I know I am lucky with that. My parents sucked at savings and my dad had to work until he was 77 years old for a multitude of different reasons but the one thing he made sure of was that his mortage was paid. In fact he somehow paid it off 5 years early when I was in high school.
Anyways. The Upstart Loan was actually funded by Cross River Bank and they have already sold the note to MPLI Capital Holdings. I could careless who owns the note. I am scheduling all payments via the Upstart platform and after I made a $40 payment on 1/13/2022 they deployed an update that allows customers to cancel scheduled payments-that feature was not there when I made that first payment. My goal is to make as many payments as possible on this loan to retire it ASAP so that I do not pay the projected $1621 in interest over the 5 year term of the loan. My scheduled monthly payment is $160.51 -which is a whole whole lot better than $250 in minimum payments I was making on the all of the accounts I paid down to Zero. I'll list some other data below for those who want to know and to help others but I am extremely happy with being able to obtain this loan as so much more of the funds I have been paying to the now paid down accounts will now be going to pay down principal on this loan. I hope to see some score increases in Feb onces all of the zero balances report as my utilization will be at 2.08%. I have 2 other card accounts-one will have a $200 balance by 1/30/2022 and the other will be at Zero balance by then.
Current Ficos that I have:
TU Fico 8 630 (Source- Upstart Disclosures from 1/8/2022)
EX Fico 8 615 (Source- AMEX via their App as of 1/7/2022)
I have a secured Personal Loan at a credit union with a $95 balance. The payments are $15/month that I will likely payoff once I see what my scores look like in February.
I have 7 open credit cards with $9600 in credit lines and the PLOC I have is actually an Overdraft Line of Credit that I can advance from -if needed -that has a $1000 CL.
My 2022 Gross Income was $92,000 including a $5000 bonus that I had to fight to get-it's a long story -but sufffice it to say that my boss was unaware of the bonus and took the matter to his bosses and HR and ensured that I received the $$. Not every boss and company is evil.
I hope all of this information helps people.
