New to Forum. Ready to rebuild credit and move on with life!

[Anonymous]

I just found this site about thirty minutes ago.  I am 24 and had great credit at 21.  It all went down hill when personal life emergencies came up.  I am now ready to tackle the challenge and rebuild my credit.  My scores are 559 accross the board, and looking at my reports I have ZERO idea where to start.  I am so overwhelmed looking at all of it and it is stressing me out.  I have a goal to get to 600 by the end of February 2019.  I know it is probably unrealistic, but I am really looking for help on where to start.  I never thought it would happen but I've met the girl of my dream (I'm a mountain biker so my dreams are pretty simple).  I want to give her everything and I have been honest about my financial situation since the beginning.  I cannot afford a financial advisor and want to do this on my own (I dug this hole and I'm taking myself out of it).  Is there any advice this great community can give me?

[Anonymous]

Well in order to help, you would have to be willing to give the people here some info.  Do you have collections, high debt, late payments, etc?  How many cards do you have? Share anything that you think will help. 

[DollyLama]

+1

Exactly what Overmedicated stated. 

Nothing is unrealistic. Plenty of good advice. 

If you can list all on reports like this

Open accounts

Credit One balance $150, Credit Limit $300

Closed accounts

Capital One, balance $525, 0 limit, closed by credit grantor, charged off

Medical collection

$1100 with ABC Collections

Installment Loan

XYZ Auto Finance $7k balance, 3 x 30 days late, 2 x 60 days

List them all out, and what or how much you have on hand cashwise to pay the creditors/collections on hand now, and the next two months. 

[Anonymous]

Fully agreed with the two posters above. Definitely include the names of any collection agencies that are showing up. Some are easy to work with, some are real hard cases, and some will even delete themselves from your reports automatically once payment is made and a certain amount of time in delinquency has passed. We can help with all of this.

The fact that you’re tackling this head-on while you’re young and not letting it fester bodes well for your future success. Give us the details and we’ll see what we can help with. And don’t worry, we don’t judge - many if not most of us are or have been there and done that, and our experiences may smooth the road for you. It may look overwhelming but a methodical approach and the attitude that it’s a marathon, not a sprint, will serve you well and with good future decisions, WILL fix your scores and reports.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the late reply guys!  It's been a busy and wild week.  I am willing to share the information on the reports with you!

Open accounts

I opened a Capital One Secured card and did the $99 deposit.  Good standing (first billing cycle currently) 10% utilization

Department of Education $3,715 good standing.  How do I get it deferred so it does not start negatively effecting me during the rebuilding?

Closed accounts

NFCU Auto Loan, $6,840 paid on time in full in 2015

NFCU Auto Loan, $12,014, paid on time in full October 2017

NFCU  Credit card (Charge off)  $1,135, 2016 charge off date

NFCU Personal loan $300 paid in full on time

NFCU Personal Loan $500 paid in full on time

Medical collection

$1100 with ABC Collections

Collections:

$1,079, AFNI (AT&T), given to them in January 2018

$1,653, NFCU, Personal loan 2014

Is there a way to provide my report on here in case there is something I missed?  Maybe a screenshot?  My goal is to honestly get approved for a store card (that I'll never use) just to say that I got one.  What really inspired me were the threads where people were talking about the cards and limits they got approved for and everyone taking part in some good fun competition.  I want an Academy card lol.  I shoot and ride bikes and it would be great to rebuild my credit so I don't ever have to worry again.  That and we want to buy a house one day.  Right now I don't have a lot of extra cash on hand.  However, at the end of every month I do $438 left over after putting savings away and all my bills, groceries, and gas is covered.  If there is anything else needed please let me know.  Anyway to get my score higher in the meantime and rebuild my worthiness is also appreciated.

[Anonymous]

You have a lot of positives and only a few negatives, so that’s good. And the collection from AFNI is low-hanging fruit. I had one with them as well. When I called to pay it off the rep told me their policy is to delete themselves completely from your reports once paid. I paid them in full, and sure enough, within one reporting cycle they were gone from all my reports.

I would definitely do what you can with the NFCU chargeoff and the AT&T chargeoff first. The medical also needs to be dealt with but I’d address the other two first, because AFNI will automatically grant a PFD and because I’m pretty sure I’ve read on here that NFCU will pull the trigger on legal action to get their money.

[Anonymous]

With NFCU will settling with them hurt on the long run with how old the accounts are? And I want to pay the AFNI one in full as well. I’d like to pay them all in full, but if the NFCU ones being settled would not hurt too bad then that’s what I’ll have to do.

[Anonymous]

Settling a debt vs paying it in full makes no difference in the calculation of your score. The only time it might matter would be under manual review. As for AFNI, you should ask if they’ll still grant a PFD for a settlement payment. If not, definitely pay it in full so it’ll be deleted. If they’ll PFD for a lesser amount, jump on it - once it’s deleted from your reports it won’t matter what you paid.

[Anonymous]

Okay! Thank you so much! After these debts are paid down and/or settled what do you think my next steps would be to start building a great history and getting my score up? I’m not looking for an overnight fix, just ways to improve it. Would say opening another secured card and keeping utilization low (less than 30% across all lines) be a good idea?

[Anonymous]

I would check the Discover prequal to see about their cards. Disco is a solid, good prime card that will grow with you, and if secured, will graduate and gain CLIs. You also get rewards on purchases. After that, look at the OpenSky card - secured with no credit check. Finally, add a SelfLender loan so you have an installment loan on your file. If you open all of these soon, they’ll age together. Waiting means that you’ll keep setting back your average Account age each time you add an account. Get Disco and OpenSky, and the SL loan, and then garden (no more apps for cards). Let the accounts age, pay the loan on time every time, and only let one of your three cards report a balance. That balance should be over $5 but no more than 8.9% of the credit limit on that card. This is known as AZEO (all zero except one) and has been proven to help max out your scores.

Attack the derogatories while you’re doing this and you’ll see your scores rising for sure.