Late payment on Student loan

[mamahearts]

Somehow we missed the notification that we were to resume making SL payments. In 2012 we paid $10,000 on student loans which paid for 5 year's worth of payments in advance. EVery month since then the statements said no payment due. But we must have missed the notice that we had to start paying again. We just pre-qualified for auto financing and I checked my credit score to gauge the APR and was shocked to receive an alert the same day that we are 90 days late on SL and we took a 79 point hit to the credit score. I immediately set up payments to bring the account current and faxed in the auto pay auth form. Now we obviously can't get the auto loan at this time. There are things we can do to bring up our score. We have high utilization on credit cards so we are going to bring those balances down as low as possible to keep the cards open. But I'm worried about CL being decreased due to low usage. Is there a way to prevent that?
Also I know the lates are going to be on my report for 7 years. But how long can I be denied credit due to this late payment if I improve my credit score quickly?
We are not in desperate need of a vehicle but our car is old and just passed the 100k threshold. Thank you!

[mamahearts]

Also wanted to add that I only owe $1525 and I'm paying $620 this month which is what is past due and currently due. Leaving me a balance of $905 and my pyt is $162/ month. So student loans will be paid off in about 5 months.

[Anonymous]

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@mamahearts wrote:
Somehow we missed the notification that we were to resume making SL payments. In 2012 we paid $10,000 on student loans which paid for 5 year's worth of payments in advance. EVery month since then the statements said no payment due. But we must have missed the notice that we had to start paying again. We just pre-qualified for auto financing and I checked my credit score to gauge the APR and was shocked to receive an alert the same day that we are 90 days late on SL and we took a 79 point hit to the credit score. I immediately set up payments to bring the account current and faxed in the auto pay auth form. Now we obviously can't get the auto loan at this time. There are things we can do to bring up our score. We have high utilization on credit cards so we are going to bring those balances down as low as possible to keep the cards open. But I'm worried about CL being decreased due to low usage. Is there a way to prevent that?
Also I know the lates are going to be on my report for 7 years. But how long can I be denied credit due to this late payment if I improve my credit score quickly?
We are not in desperate need of a vehicle but our car is old and just passed the 100k threshold. Thank you!

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You have to get that utilization down. I doubt they'd reduce your lines due to low usage, but the debt has has to go.

Try goodwill letters to see if you can get the SL lates removed.

Also, 100k is really nothing on cars nowadays. Keep up on maintenance and you can get another 100k easy with no car payment. Knock out your existing debt first

[mamahearts]

Thanks. We are actually already on top of that. I'm just wondering if we can feasibly qualify for a car loan with a decent/good rate in the next 6 months at the latest if we pay on time on all our accts, bring down the utilization and pay off the collections acct. It's just hard to look at where we were a week ago getting pre qualified for rates as low as 3.99 from Cap One and lower from CU to now losing 76 points off our credit score and no longer qualifying for prime rates.
I am starting a part time job (in addition to my full time job) next week and the funds from that job are going towards getting our CC balances paid down.
Without even counting on that part time job, we will have the SL paid off in February.
The collections acct paid off in November.
And can start to put money aside for a down pyt.
The car is a 98 Ford Contour. We want to be able to use it for a trade in while it's still valuable.
I know the late pyt can stay on the report for 7 years if IA student loans won't agree to remove it.
Just feeling kinda hopeless and frustrated at the moment. ISL say they're doing us a courtesy by not reporting 30 day lates but I have credit alerts on my reports so that 30 day would never have turned into a 90 day late. Its been a hectic summer and I didn't expect SL payments to resume until the fall. So yes its my fault too. Now I'm on a mission to fix my credit again.