Help on where to start

[Anonymous]

Hey guys new here. My credit is horrible from losing my job 3 years ago and let my credit cards go. I have been on credit karma for a couple months and thought I was learning the ropes but then I found out those scores are fake. So my question is where should I start here. Wasn't sure if I should pay the 60$ or the 30$ monthly? I want something like credit karma bit with the real fico scores.

[RonM21]

I would recommend CCT. They give you Ficos for all 3 once a month, and will update Experian every day. When you do the trial, you can call to cancel and they'll knock the price down to like $15 per month. MyFico is another option also, but more expensive.

[Anonymous]

Thanks I appreciate the guidance

[Anonymous]

Building credit is a time game...
I would personally recommend forwarding that monthly fee towards a card that can be used for your benefit.
Some of the cards with higher reward rates have an annual fee, which you can pay for with the money you were planning to spend on a monthly credit monitoring subscription.

Seeing your monthly scores can be satisfying, especially when you see it go up one by one. But there's rarely anything you can do on a monthly basis based on those numbers, apart from the due diligence, which you don't really need the monitoring for.

There are credit cards that offer free FICO credit scores: Amex, Discover, BOA being some of them. I get my transunion and Equifax through Amex & Discover. The only thing I'm missing is Experian, but I check that record once a year through free annual credit report, and as long as the records are consistent with the other bureaus, I have an idea as to what the FICO score would be.

Get a credit card, make sure to use it and pay it off in full every month, and it's a time game from there.

[Anonymous]

I would go with CCT the price point of 15 seems worth it

[surferchris]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Building credit is a time game...
I would personally recommend forwarding that monthly fee towards a card that can be used for your benefit.
Some of the cards with higher reward rates have an annual fee, which you can pay for with the money you were planning to spend on a monthly credit monitoring subscription.

Seeing your monthly scores can be satisfying, especially when you see it go up one by one. But there's rarely anything you can do on a monthly basis based on those numbers, apart from the due diligence, which you don't really need the monitoring for.

There are credit cards that offer free FICO credit scores: Amex, Discover, BOA being some of them. I get my transunion and Equifax through Amex & Discover. The only thing I'm missing is Experian, but I check that record once a year through free annual credit report, and as long as the records are consistent with the other bureaus, I have an idea as to what the FICO score would be.

Get a credit card, make sure to use it and pay it off in full every month, and it's a time game from there.

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God advice.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much. I really want to get into a house after these fall of my report. Which I'm guessing is in about 5 years or so. So I will continue to pay them off and improve my most recent credit history. I have two car payments a personal loan and a secured card. All with no late payments.

[Anonymous]

I recommend CCT trials not a full membership.  I'm cheap and feel spending $2 per month on 2 trials where you can get your scores once a week for 4 weeks is just as good.

I get it if someone has a lot going on with their reports that they may require daily monitoring at some point, but for me weekly is just fine.  As stated a million times on this forum, building credit is a long, slow process from month to month... arguably checking your info week to week is even too much... day to day, for me, is overkill.  It's like someone trying to lose weight that weighs themself every day.