Help with my long term building plan

[Anonymous]

First off im fairly new on building my credit up this is the first time I have taken an interest in doing it. I am 28 and never owned a credit card. I did have 2 different things financed before which would be considered installmen loans. Things happened and i fell behind on them but about 3 or 4 years ago they was both paid in full. My wife has excellent credit when we financed her car 2 years ago the dealership said they score they pulled was 850. I am not part of her car loan or the mortage loan(both turned us down when we tried to co sign together on them so she got them alone).

My end game for building my credit is financing a truck(semi truck) for around $20-30k and after that a trailer around $20k to become my own boss and own my own business. I am currently a company driver. I am hoping to do this as soon as I can hoping for under 3 years.

I recently applied and was approved for a captial one secured and a discover secured card. I used the discover credit monitoring afterwards and it says i dont have a fico score for ex. I have been monitoring it recently on creditkarma though i know their scores are not accurate, but none the less they are reporting between 550-590. Currently am waiting for the cards to come so they have not registered on my reports yet.

My question is now where do i go from here? 

I've considered the alliant long secured loan. Should I go for one more card? I am not fond of having funds tied up for a long period though I understand it may be my only option which is why I went for the 2 secured cards. Should I wait for the cards to hit my reports and bring it up some so that I am able to get unsecured cards?

10-4

[Anonymous]

May also be relevant that I'm not much worried about the limits on the cards since I don't plan on using any of them besides the discover for about $20 a week in gas and pif.

10-4

[Anonymous]

One more credit card would help, along with an installment loan if you don't have one. Then lett them age for at least 6 months while you work on your negatives. You should then be able to obtain a couple of unsecured cards. 3 to 5 cards are optimal for rebuilding. You do want to use your cards some as this is how you build payment history, Just keep the balances low, less than 9% and all reporting a zero balance except one. SDFCU has a good secured card.

[Anonymous]

Negatives drop off after 7 years right? The only ones I have are the late payments from the loans that have been paid in full. They are over 6 years now so these will drop off soon even though they have been settled?

[Anonymous]

you have obviously been reading and it sounds like you are on the right track. treasure is right you do want at least one more card (but don't go crazy, I'd stop at 5 total cards max) and one instalment loan. Are you already a member at a CU? Alliant is by all accounts great but you can also check into your local CU(s) and ask about terms, do they report to all 3 bureaus, etc. Or just stick with the trusted method :-) A local CU may also have a secured card (or even a regular card) to offer you, although I personally do not like tying up my credit products the same place as where I keep my cash. 

it sounds like you just got your cards so you haven't even had a chance to charge anything, much less generate a full statement cycle so it is not surprising  you do not have a score at least one bureau... give it at least a couple-few statement months to catch up. 

patience is the game in credit building. (it can be hard sometimes!) welcome to the forums! 

[Anonymous]

My suggestion would be to sit tight with what you have now. Use the two cards you just got for few months. If your negatives are going to fall off soon like you said, use the cards until they fall off of your reports. Then your score should improve pretty well. By that point you should be able to get some better unsecured credit cards. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was in no way planning on going crazy and trying to get a bunch. I was thinking that getting the minimum of what I need to begin building close together so that my average age wouldn't be as inconsistant. Also have tried to get secured cards to are known to graduate and with no annual or monthly fees for that reason.

For the usage and paying of the cards, do they get reported as ontime payments if there is no payment ie no balance when statement is cut? Meaning will there be a difference in pif early as opposed to leaving like $5 on them for when the statement cuts? If i remember reading correctly that 0% utilization isnt exactly a good thing. 

I can be patient with it all just trying to get everything setup so i can just sit back and let them do their thing. I'm not currently a member of a CU and my bank doesn't offer secured loans or cards, and the hours I work make it difficult to be in person in the banks which is why I liked the idea of it being all online with alliant.

10-4