Taking stock at the 18-month (or a bit later) mark in my credit rebuild:
At the end of December 2015, I only had my just-approved Capital One secured Platinum (not yet mailed to me), plus a student loan that I had just resumed repayment on after a lengthy financial-hardship forbearance period, having just returned to full-time work several months with the Federal government previously. My scores were somewhere in the mid-high 500's (I wasn't really checking FICO scores then).
In early July 2017, I am awaiting my new Penfed Power Cash Rewards Visa, having been approved on a SP during Penfed's quarterly review of members' credit reports. This brings my total number of credit cards to 8, 7 of them unsecured and 6 of them rewards-earners of some type. I've joined a second credit union (Apple FCU) to expand my financial options and have a used-car loan from Penfed which not only has allowed a badly-needed replacement of my transport but has also provided a key expansion of my credit portfolio. I have a total of $18,251 in revolving credit spread out over eight cards (once the PCR arrives and is activated) with an overall utilization of about 12.7%. I don't currently have any credit lines over $4k (Overstock store card) but have hopes of getting some good CLI's as my scores increase and accounts age with proper maintenance. My FICO scores are moving steadily toward 700 now, though Transunion is still lagging; I think this was due to an account closed in bankruptcy still erroneously reporting as open. This mistake has now been fixed and I expect/hope TU to catch up to Experian and Equifax over the next few months.
I'm entering the garden for at least the next couple of months to allow things to cool down after the recent spree (four cards in six weeks!) so will be restricting my credit activity to CLI attempts during this phase, starting with Discover next week; I got a double-dip CLI (auto/manual) last month and will be experimenting this month and next to see whether I'm on the 30-day or 60-day CLI schedule. In fact, at this point, having gotten the card I most wanted to get - the Penfed PCR - I don't really have any other cards that I feel an urgent need to get, with the exception of Paypal Credit (Comenity) or the new Paypal 2% Cashback Mastercard (Synchrony). This isn't a real high priority, and I need to fix what I think is a problem with an old Bill Me Later account that was closed at the time of my 2014 bankruptcy (but apparently was somehow linked with my Paypal account and that link never taken down) before I can apply for any new Paypal credit product anyway.
Overall, I think I'm at a fairly advanced stage in my rebuild.
