@Anonymous wrote:I found these forums less than a month ago and I’m so hooked. I have already learned a lot. I guess I wanted to stop lurking and say hi. I’m rebuilding. From a 556 TU in March 2014 to 630 TU in late June. Got a long way to go.
I have never had a charge off, collection, judgment or bankruptcy. Just a LOT of lates on my reports, mostly from student loans. 69 lates to be precise (12 90 days, 5 120 days, 2 150 days) all from 2010-2013 timeframe though I have two 90 day lates from Sallie Mae earlier this year that I am trying to GW b/c they were the result of a “who’s on first?” routine between me and my husband over who’s paying them. I thought you were paying the student loans. No, I thought YOU were, I stopped the direct deposit to that account. Oh look, the auto payments have been reversed for past three months… Here’s a tip: getting two or more reversals when in auto pay will terminate one from the Sallie Mae .25% interest rate reduction for autopay forever. Smooth move.
I’ve GW all the 90+ lates and am waiting to hear back on all of them.
I had lots of credit in college (why does a 19 year old with no job need a $14,000 CL Visa?) but was irresponsible in racking up way more than I could handle. I paid it all off in a few years through credit counseling. Then I fell into the camp of thinking credit cards were the worst things in the world and closed them all. Then I found out that was a bad idea. (Why don’t they tell you this stuff in school???) Since then I’ve opened a few. My husband has much better credit than me and I want to be where he is! He has about $25k in available credit. I have 1/10th that. I’m 37 and I (think) I’m ready to be a grown up.
I owe $175k in student loans that I’m paying $1300/month towards. Salary is high $100s. Own our car outright, renting, would like to buy a house in 2-3 years. Bigger priority for me is to pay off student loans and have that freedom.
Currently, I have $400 balance on a $500 Cap One (29.4% APR) I opened in 2001; $1900 balance on $2k Cap One (24.9% APR) opened July 2013 and a closed (but not charged off) USAA MC (15.9%) with $3k balance on $7k limit. My immediate plan is to get the utilization on the Cap Ones below 10% and pay off the USAA MC. But I think I also need to be building my trade lines.
Thanks to the shopping cart trick, this past Friday night, I got $750 VS (instant) and $250 J Crew (got 7-10 day msg but I think it was because it was the weekend, checked online this morning and approved). The trick worked for many other cards and it was so tempting just to have the satisfaction of seeing that warm credit love, like coming in from being adrift in the North Sea, but I satisfied myself just seeing the pre app pop up and didn’t pull the trigger on all the toy cards I will never use.
I signed up for the Eliminate ID Theft for the credit report pulls but it hasn’t set up yet.
As I continue to work on GW my many lates and pay down the balances on the other cards, I will garden. I don’t think I have a choice. Can’t get the pre apps on any non-store sites to work.
In my humble dream wallet, I’d like:
Disney Premier Rewards Visa
Starwood Amex
Sallie Mae MC
Green Amex
A gas card
Convert my two cap ones to Quicksilver
Is this a good mix? Does this sound attainable one day? Are there stepping stones to these cards? Or are these cards stepping stones to better cards that I don’t even know about yet?
Am I doing this right? Is there something I should be doing but am not? What are my next steps?
Thank you ten million times to this community. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as recon, shopping cart tricks, luv buttons, GW, SP v. HP and so many other things until I started reading here.
That is a good card mix that is attainable once your lates are taken care of or back in history, its the ones that have happened recently that hurt the most. Looks like a good plan to me, you know you have to get your utilization down, ultimately you only want 1 revolving card reporting a balance of 1-9% of its CL to the CRAs all others at 0, this will help maximize your Fico score. Good luck to your success and welcome to MF 
