Need Help on Increase Credit Score in the next 6 months

[Anonymous]

I'm 27 a single mom of one and going through a pending divorce (already signed papers, just waiting on the gavel hit from the judge - got about a month and a half to go).  Anyway, I am a Therapist, making about 30k a year and a doctorate student.  About 3 years ago, I had magnificent credit around 680 and 675.  At the age of 23-24, that was great to me, anyway.  My X-husband couldn't apply for credit for cash, his credit was terrible.  See I wasn't educated about credit at all (even in my younger years), until I started working for a lending/finance institution and then I began to really get myself together.

My X was elbow high in debt and all the things (well most things, I wasn't a total idiot) had to be in my mind for us to even get a decent apartment.  Well fast forward to 2010, we separated for the 3rd and last time in our 5 years of marriage and I was done with him.  My credit did take some jabs.  From a 675 from Equifax down to 577 and TU from 680 down to 630 (thought that was kinda odd).  

I took over my car note because I'm driving it and I am the most the responsible when it comes down to paying bills. I'm pretty on-time when it comes to paying that note, I never get 30-days behind.   I paid off 1 charged off credit card collection back in March 2010 and in the midst of paying back a collection acct from an apt where my X and I had to break our lease from an apt we had and he got laid off about 2 years ago, that's about $2600 (I was a stay at home mom at the time).  I have about 2 other debts, one I'm paying off next week and one other I'm going to start paying off, next month.  

My big debt is that $2600 debt, I can't get an apt because of it.  So I'm bunking with my parents now, until I can get it paid and away from my report.  I don't want ANY MORE credit cards.  If I pay these collections off, will my score rise to a point I can trade in my car? or get an apt??  Like by April or May next year????  I'm tired of living with my parents, I don't mind them, but I'm old enough to be on my own and to raise my daughter alone without outside guidance (ugh!).   But I'm sacrificing sooooo much right now, because I have no extra money.  I don't know how in the world I'm going to do Christmas.  This may be a very short filled Christmas for my baby girl, because I want to think long-term and not short term

AND IM NOT GETTING ANY CHILD SUPPORT FROM HER DAD BECAUSE HE REFUSES TO PAY ME ANYTHING...(the court hasn't awarded me anything yet).  

HOW CAN I RAISE MY SCORES IN THIS AMOUNT OF TIME!!!???? right now i'm at TU = 630 and EQ = 577  I have no idea about EXPERIAN.

[marty56]

I am not an expert on collections but paying a collection off won't help your FICO score at all.  You must do something called a Pay for delete PFD.  There are many smart poeple here who can help you with the process.  Please post more information on your accounts (who they are with and how much).

[Anonymous]

Preferably the one that is the oldest. Charge-offs are not my speciality but I believe you can still Pay for delete (PFD). 

Good luck to you and take a deep breath, as Christmas is not all that important and it all works out in the end 

[Anonymous]

My old apartment: $2600

AT&T: $600

An old hospital bill (from my child's delivery) $450

That's pretty much it.

Thank goodness I don't have a lot of debt. 

If I can get that 2600 debt off my reports, I can finally get my very own place.  I've gotten rejected from an apartment place about 3 months ago because it shows the termination of a lease. I was soo hurt and disappointed, but operating on a salary that pays hardly anything, I am really sacrificing a lot. That's the biggest thing that i have going on and even if i can just get my Equifax score above 600, I will feel better about getting a used car that has more room and better gas mileage and a one bedroom apartment.  I have a 2 door compact car for me and my 2 year old and it's very tight.  

I'm in the midst of finding a second job - which is hard cuz i am a single mom. OR a job that can pay well above the bills I have.  

[daisyduke]

You might want to consider to call your previous landlord and make payment arrangements. See if they might consider once the 2600 is paid in full, if they would remove the tradeline from your credit report. It's worth a shot.  This is what is probably holding you back from securing future rental needs.

I would also consider pulling all three credit reports from annualcreditreport.com - check them over carefully for mistakes, etc.

While your two door car might be a little bit tight, I'd probably move the car to  last on my list, since it's functional for now.  Right after I got divorced and sold our house, I drove a little Celica two door and what a pain putting my son (who was only two) in the back seat of that car, but I did't have a car payment either...I took the car in the divorce that was paid for!! not the one with a note on it.

Christmas will come for you and your daughter and she'll remember more meaningful things about the time spent with her verus actual presents!! plus she's little too - I am not sure about childrens memory under the age of five...always a bright side.

Good luck to you and wishing you the best...

[RobertEG]

This debt was all apparently incurred while married.

Forget for a moment the reporting of this to your CR. 

Take, for example,  the $2600 in prior apartment rental debt.  As a co-leasee, its reporting was apparently legit.

But payment of this debt is a different matter. 

Do you have a marital separation agreement that specifiied the mutual obligation of the parties to pay this debt upon decree of divorce?

You should not, in my opinion,  have agreed to 100% obligation.  What does your divorce atty say to you regarding disposition of this mutual debt?

The creditor may now be holding you both obligated, but a court order in your divorce decree can change those obligations.

You may now have possession of the car, but he once also had the priviedges of its use, so why should you assume total obligation for the remaining debt?

I guess my point is that individual obligation for remaining debt is sometthing that you can get from the court, with assertive negotiation of your final divorce decree, which usually comes from folding of your negotitated marital separation agreement into the final decree.

He cant refuse to pay child support if you request it in your divorce hearing, and the judge consents.  It is not his decision to make.

I hope your divorce atty is aggressive.

[valley_man0505]

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@RobertEG wrote:

This debt was all apparently incurred while married.

Forget for a moment the reporting of this to your CR. 

Take, for example,  the $2600 in prior apartment rental debt.  As a co-leasee, its reporting was apparently legit.

But payment of this debt is a different matter. 

Do you have a marital separation agreement that specifiied the mutual obligation of the parties to pay this debt upon decree of divorce?

You should not, in my opinion,  have agreed to 100% obligation.  What does your divorce atty say to you regarding disposition of this mutual debt?

The creditor may now be holding you both obligated, but a court order in your divorce decree can change those obligations.

You may now have possession of the car, but he once also had the priviedges of its use, so why should you assume total obligation for the remaining debt?

I guess my point is that individual obligation for remaining debt is sometthing that you can get from the court, with assertive negotiation of your final divorce decree, which usually comes from folding of your negotitated marital separation agreement into the final decree.

He cant refuse to pay child support if you request it in your divorce hearing, and the judge consents.  It is not his decision to make.

I hope your divorce atty is aggressive.

---

RobertEG--from my experience with divorce and debt, this strategy may not help much from a credit reporting/score standpoint.  I learned the hard way that a divorce decree can determine who is responsible for paying a debt from the marriage, but it doesn't assign full ownership of the debt to that person from a legal standpoint.  It can still be reported on both parties' reports.  A divorce decree does not change the fact that the debt is in both people's names--once you incur a debt with your name on it, there is no changing that (except cases of identity theft, of course).  What the decree CAN do, however, is give you an open-and-shut case to sue the X if he/she does not then pay the debt.  Even then, though, this will not affect the credit reports until the X actually DOES pay.  Just wanted to make sure that was clear for the OP.

[valley_man0505]

One more bit of advice for the OP.  You have seen a few people comment that "Christmas is not all that important".  While that may seem kind of cold-hearted, I would have to agree.  I have raised two different children with two different mothers, and what I have realized is that from years 0 thru about 4, Christmas is for the mother, not the child.  Mothers trying to rationalize all the money spent on Christmas saying they are doing it for their son/daughter, but, in reality, they are doing it for themselves.  At that young of an age, the children don't know enough to know whether what they got for Christmas is "a lot" or "a little".  In fact, they don't really even know they are "supposed" to be getting presents.  Also, keep in mind that they will not remember their first 3 or 4 Christmas's anyway--so, like you said, think long term and not short term.  Save the money for when the children are old enough to know whether or not they should be disappointed (and, of course, as adults, we know that being disappointed about not getting enough gifts is not politically correct, but you can not expect a child to understand that once they are old enough to compare their Christmas haul with that of their friends).

[haulingthescoreup]

Tackle the newest negatives first. The "younger" the negative, the more it hurts.

Removing older negatives is nice, but you're scored off of three characteristics of negatives: frequency, severity, and "recency" (how recently it occurred.) If you have two negatives of equal weight --two CO's for example --removing the older one probably won't affect your scores as long as the newer one is on. It's good to do, of course, but all things being equal, getting the newer ones off is much more valuable.

Ideally you'll try to clean up everything, of course, but put your full energy into the newer stuff.

PFD (pay for delete) and GW (goodwill, aka begging) are what you need to do to get negatives off your reports. Check out the samples in the Frequently Requested Threads up above.