Anything else I should do now?

[Anonymous]

Chapter 7 bankruptcy just discharged-

I have a car loan that I did reaffirm, but, no idea if it will keep reporting. I will have a new student loan next month- so I'm thinking I don't need self lender. 

Now, my husband also has a reaffirmed car loan that is showing closed. I'm tempted to say that it will not report going forward. Is Self Lender the right choice for him? If so, how long should he pay on it before paying it off? 

I broke down and bought our scores and monitoring, figure I probably need it the first few months anyways. Really surprised how badly spouse's scores dropped. Neither of us had any derogatories before the bankruptcy, only real difference after is my student loan. 

I think I'm going to stop at the two cards I've gotten so far. Spouse got declined for a couple things, but, fortunately without any hard inquiries because I used prequalifying. He tried to fund an OpenSky tonight, but, it wouldn't take his debit card. So, guess we will try that again in a few days. Finally gave up and applied for a Fingerhut card for him because he didn't prequalify for anything, not even CreditOne. Bought a $3 toy horse and will pay it when the statement cuts and then hopefully find another cheap thing to buy or else maybe he'll qualify for something else without us having to use it again. 

Is there anything else I can do now? Or just wait and see? 

[Anonymous]

I don't know anything about the bk, but as for Fingerhut, when I set up my account, I ordered a speaker to use for work (something I needed anyway so it wasn't just junk, luckily) and they held the order until I made a 30$ "down-payment", which went to the cost of the speaker, and the difference in price remained as my balance to pay off. It's been pretty easy with them, I've bought a couple things that I already needed, but waited for sales first, and I've had no trouble.

They were the first credit account I could get approved, that was about 6 months ago. I don't know off hand how much they helped my score because I didn't sign up for any monitoring and right now I only use the freebies like Credit Karma, which just try to guess what your score is.

However, after three months, Fingerhut doubled my credit account from 300$ to $600 which helps pad your available credit so utilization is lower.

They are pricey, but they have been a big help for me in starting to improve my credit again.

I also have SelfLender, just the 25$ a month. I haven't noticed any difference with my credit reports with them, yet, but I'm just using them primarily as a "forced monthly savings" for now. I have a car loan in good standing tho, so I think that makes any benefit from SelfLender not be that big. It's okay, tho, at the end I'll have some cash that I probably would have spent on chocolate instead!

[Anonymous]

That's what I read, that Self Lender is only good if you need to improve mix because you don't have an installment loan yet. Maybe I should wait to sign spouse up for that, just in case his car loan does start reporting again. 

I can't buy things that are more expensive than I could get them someplace else. I just can't do it. Fingerhut has a ridiculous markup. I looked at a bunch of things I could have used, but, the prices were so much higher I just couldn't do it. At least, not in the categories I was shopping in. Before I buy anything, I check multiple websites to make sure I'm getting the best price I can right now. The toy horse was on clearance which finally made it the same price as Tractor Supply.. lol I'll give it to a nephew if my daughter doesn't like it. Plus, with tax it was something like 1.3% of the limit, so, should be about right for optimum utility. 

I'm hoping that after the statement cuts he'll qualify for CreditOne and we just won't use that card again and let it close for inactivity in a couple years.

I will need decent credit when I start job hunting in the fall. Around here, the average credit score is only 668, so I don't have too far to go.