72 points in three months, first non secured approval yesterday!

[jhc7399]

Thanks again to everyone here I have reached another milestone in my rebuild history. Approved for a $600.00 limit on Walmart card yesterday!

This was done purely on the advice from the people here on these forums. Thank You everyone! I am more of a lurker than I am a poster but I felt the need to share the good news and let everyone know that this can be done and how it worked for me. I started in October really working on getting my credit right with a Fico 586 and I received a myfico alert on the 11th of this month that I was up to 658. My goal is 700 or higher by the end of the year so I can buy the house I am in a lease option with.

The Bad: I still have a paid and released IRS tax lien from 2003. I requested a withdrawl from the IRS four months ago and still have not heard anything. I think this drops off late this year so if I have to wait for that then so be it.

:An unpaid State tax lien that I am working hard on right now to get paid and released, should be done with that in a few months.

:And a paid and released judgement from 2008. I am going to attempt to have this withdrawn shortly.

:I also have six baddies left that I am working my way through with disputes, PFD's and DV's.

The Good: I have four secured cards that I work diligently on UTL every single month. USAA - $250.00, NFCU - $500.00, Cap One - $200.00 and a local bank, 5/3rd - $300.00. I know exactly when all of these cards report to the CRA's and I do not have more than and as close to 9% as I can get them when they report. I also have a small load secured on my car for $1,000 that is automatically withdrawn from my account every month so I can't be late. They only report to Experian so it doesn't do much but they were the only one who would give me credit at the time.

I know some people say on here that you do not need to overload on the secured cards but the USAA & NFCU were available to me and I have heard nothing but good about them so I went ahead and got them. The 5/3rd card is from the bank I do all of my banking at so I figured why not. And the Cap One was on a whim almost two years ago before I even started trying to get this all straightened out.

I will keep you posted and let everyone know of any bumps in the road or any good things that happen

[Springer]

AWESOME!! CONGRATS

[Goal850]

Congrats! Great progress, keep it up!

[Epcot]

Fantastic progress, Congrats!

[Shogun]

That's a nice bump!

[QAMngrGirl]

I have made great progress with my credit on advice from here alone too! CONGRATS! It's a great feeling! Keep it up

[Cadillac-XTS]

Congrats

[fbh31118]

Kudos on the hard work!  Looks like its paying off. 

[bobbycredit]

jhc,

Congrats on your success! I have the same starting credit score now, same number of baddies, etc. and will be getting my first secured card today. You don't have to answer all of these (as I like analytics) but can I ask what your strategy was for the 4 secured cards? Ex: Did you get them all at the same time (aside from the cap one)? One per month? Have you been using score watch? Does the score go up the same amount every month? Is it decreasing in speed/gaining in speed? (any sort of pattern you noticed when adding more secured cards?)

Thanks and congrats again!

[jhc7399]

I got the Cap One in 6/11 or very close to there, The 5/3rd & NFCU in 5/12 and the USAA in 12/12. I do use score watch and love it. I only get updates 1-2x's a month and it is usally when I get a rise in my score. I have had huge jumps in my score the past few months when I got really serious about playing the utilization game. I went on vacation in July and had the three cards maxed out for a couple of months and didn't see much of a score rise at all but once I paid the cards down and kept around 9% total of my available credit for all four cards my score started shooting up! I can tell you that is the biggest thing that has made the biggest difference. I have had quite a few baddies deleted and seen a rise in score here and there but once I started 9% utl. that really did it for me. The four cards I have report on the 27th, 27th 3rd and the 7th. My limit between the four cards is only $1250.00, after all four of those cards are done reporting my utl. should add up to a little over $120.00 on all four cards on their reporting date. I normally get an update between the 10th -20th of the month.

To find out when your cards update with the CRA's you can call the card company. One of my mine had no idea when they updated but if you can get a Transunion report it will have the last reporting date from each creditor on it and it should be the same every month.

Any other questions let me know. I am no expert by no means but I can tell you what is working for me.