Realistic Timeframes/Expectations for rebuilding?

[HoneyBadger302]

Long story short, post a layoff (and serious lifestyle creep prior to that), ended up in some financial binds. Things have been resolved, and lessons learned, and a few years later, I'm in the process of rebuilding.

Currently my debts include student loans (IBR), mortgage - new as of 9/2023 (paying a little extra each month), a small balance on my PayPal credit I'm paying off before it accrues interest. Savings and retirement investments are growing - behind the power curve there, but working on it. Vehicle and motorcycle all paid off, no other credit or line of credit debts (have one small cc and one line of credit, both with $0 balances).

Overall, things are now doing okay, everything else from my past mistakes has been completely taken care of. I'm now looking to rebuild, but as I have no intention of taking out any more credit anytime soon, not sweating the timelines.

Just wondering what realistic timelines are to achieve a solid FICO, so when I someday want to utilize credit further, I can get top rates. Currently sitting around 650, give or take depending on the bureau. I know it will take time, just curious if it's a matter of a couple/few years, or if we're talking more like 10 years, assuming I keep everything on the up n up and don't repeat past mistakes.

[Horseshoez]

Without specifics on your current debts and negative items on your credit reports, more specific prognostication will be impossible.

With the above said, assuming you have a minimum of three revolvers (one with a trivial balance) and one installment loan (like your mortgage), when all of your derogatory marks on your credit reports fall off after 7 years, your scores should shoot up into the 800s.

[admiralsmoker]

You didn't provide specifics into your credit profile. Assuming you have a credit card reporting and all your negative accounts have been completely paid, you should be able to achieve a FICO score of 700 within 2 years.  A lot of assumptions are being made here. If you provide your credit profile, we can have a better outlook of what the future will look like. 

[Blender]

Realistic is gonna be different for every profile. 

List out the delinquencies (charge offs, collections, lates, etc) and what date is listed on your reports (mm/yyyy). That'll help ya get some more realistic answers.

[302HoneyBadger]

Bumping (my) thread here to document the path thus far (pardon the new user name, signed up for myFICO with my usual email address, and can't figure out if the accounts can even be merged or not).

6 months since I came in here asking about things. Currently hovering right around 700 on all 3 FICO8's (give or take a few points either direction). The other scoring methods have me a bit higher.

Rebuilding is going well, keeping my bills down, keeping utilization minimal at this point, still building my savings (nothing to do with the score, just my own security and financial health).

Still a long road ahead but at this point I feel like I have a nice mix of available credit, and have no intentions of any major purchases in the next few years now that I have a house that should be fine for any major items that I couldn't cover with my emergency savings.

It's been a lot of work to earn the money to make it possible to rebuild - but it's happening, slowly but surely.

[keekers]

Keep grinding; hard to see the other side of the mountain from the trek up but persistence pays off.