Just wanted to share an update, maybe give some hope to other people at the beginning of their rebuild or something, who knows! I won't go too much into the history of my story since I've already posted most of that. But I just wanted to say that I made more progress this year than I thought I would.
Since I finally qualified for FAFSA for the first time in years, I went back to school for the fall semester (while still working my job). It was such a huge relief to not have to pay tuition and books out of pocket anymore! I was able to boost my GPA and even made President's List!
In NovemberOctober, I got my first unsecured card since my rebuild. While it's just an already-bucketed Capital One Platinum, it just sort of feels nice to be back in CO's good(-ish) graces after burning them a few years ago. Will likely switch this card to something more useful at some point but it's not really a priority right now, just going to let it age.
The big bang at the end of the year was finally paying my last derog account: a checking account from a local credit union that went into overdraft and eventually charge off status a couple of years ago. While the OC never sent this account to collections, I felt bad about it and was starting to see that my scores weren't getting any better with these monthly updates. My score gains plateaued towards the middle/end of 2020 and I was worried that this one account might hold me back in the future. I paid it on December 31st and, despite watching $600 evaporate from my bank account, it felt really good to take this step. I'm hoping to send a gw letter once it updates to the CRAs, not really sure what to expect for score increases/decreases initially though.
It's really the help of this forum and the people here that got me to where I am now. I went into this rebuild with no idea what I was doing but I ended up reading post after post on here for hours and I feel like I'm really on the right track now.
One big piece of advice I wish I could give myself is to keep track of your progress. It's really easy to have small score gains here and there and get discouraged, forgetting about the bigger picture. I made myself a bunch of credit and budget charts and graphs on Google Sheets so I can monitor and remind myself of my progress (also, Google Sheets is just a good thing to be practiced in for work and school). I wish I would have done this way sooner. (Side note, Google Sheets graphs have a 'trend line' option which is not necessarily real-world applicable to credit but it's just cool and motivating to see)
As for 2021: I'm continuing AZEO, maybe looking to do a little gardening after a much-needed upcoming vehicle purchase, and hoping to do less lurking on here and more contribution since I'd like to give back to the community that has provided so much for me.
Stay safe everyone!
Congrats on all your progress! It's nice to know, even with scores still on the rebound, that all your "bad/charge off" debt is completely paid. Now, you don't have to worry about monthly updating of accounts on your credit supressing your scores.
Best of luck going forward!
Nice progress friend... thanks for sharing this update and best wishes for a continued successful journey!
Congratulations on your success! Thank you for sharing your story. Good luck on your credit journey.
