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Rebuilding my life

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moto4man
Regular Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life


@Rspressburg wrote:

Thank you! It does feel awesome to start seeing results. I took a glance at your scores and almost fainted! Lol. You absolutely killed it! Any advice? 


The best advice I can give you is, listen to these guys around here.   I can't emphasize that enough... From the basics, all the way to the master plan.   But as you've seen with my scores... it was all about that CO getting current, and allowing it to start collecting dust.  Although it's so new, there probably isn't much dust accumulated yet.  lol 

 

I do still have a small medical collection that I paid (under $100), that hasn't reflected at the CRA's yet.  Supposedly, those won't hurt your scores.  But I think those are exclusive to FICO8 scores.  Not so much others such as those used by mortgage lenders.  That question is still in my arsenal for the wizards around here.

Starting Score: 547EX
Current Score: 682EX 687EQ 687TU
Goal Score: 750


Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Message 11 of 19
moto4man
Regular Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life


@Rspressburg wrote:

I forgot to ask earlier, do you have any advice on what I should do next? Should I garden, like I am seriously considering and work with what I currently have? I'm new to this game, which is sad to say at my age. I just don't want to make any massive mistakes. 


I'm no young fella myself... don't sweat it!  It's never too late.  Give some of the other active contributors a while to chime in for some solid advice.  But I don't think there is ever an issue with a little garden work, given you're working on any baddies in the process.

Starting Score: 547EX
Current Score: 682EX 687EQ 687TU
Goal Score: 750


Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Message 12 of 19
Rspressburg
New Member

Re: Rebuilding my life

Well to be perfectly honest, I haven't even began working on the baddies, which is all medical and one UVerse bill that I have no clue about. I've disputed numerous times to no avail. I owe a couple of k, roughly 3 on the medical but it's all old. From my research, I've seen a large amount of people advising to allow them to fall off and that paying could actually hurt you, so I don't know what to do with those at this point. I feel bad for not paying my medical expenses but to be honest, I was not in a good place at those times and was unable to pay. Ugh lol. 

Message 13 of 19
Rspressburg
New Member

Re: Rebuilding my life

Ok, so I was scrolling through and came across your post about the CO and medical. I see that paying them most definitely does not hurt you. I obviously need to stop watching YouTube and stick strictly here. Omg. I'm going to have to start calling these people and setting up payments lol. I wish I had the cash up front right now but the kid needs braces and repairs are needed in the home. Oh well, at least I now know the potential gains from paying them off. Thank you thank you moto! 

Message 14 of 19
moto4man
Regular Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life


@Rspressburg wrote:

Ok, so I was scrolling through and came across your post about the CO and medical. I see that paying them most definitely does not hurt you. I obviously need to stop watching YouTube and stick strictly here. Omg. I'm going to have to start calling these people and setting up payments lol. I wish I had the cash up front right now but the kid needs braces and repairs are needed in the home. Oh well, at least I now know the potential gains from paying them off. Thank you thank you moto! 


Some of those YT vids are good for the basics, and send you in the right direction.  But if you want real tried and true tweaks and direction, this is the best place to be.  I've scowered the web for well over a year, and while my scores were still rising... I didn't know how, nor see any real significant results until I came here.  The cost is free, and if one can handle a bit of brutal (no so much) honesty, listen intently, and have a want to do themselves.  They will help!  I wish there was a way for me to take a couple of these folks out on the town for a night or something.  

Starting Score: 547EX
Current Score: 682EX 687EQ 687TU
Goal Score: 750


Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Message 15 of 19
MasonK
Frequent Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life


@Rspressburg wrote:

Great advice. Truly. I've heard of this rule somewhere before but I will certainly research, and study. It's very inspiring to see such great progress and in a way, it helps me build my self confidence. Thank you. 


This post got waaaaay longer and waaaaay more detailed than I planned.

 

50/30/20 is just one of my budgeting tools/metrics, but it's a good barometer of where you are, where you were, and where you need to go. Basically, you track all income/expenses and put them into 3 categories- 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% to savings/debt. Here's a quick rundown of what I do, and as you'll see, these percentage targets can change over time.

 

My implementation is a little different in that I consider 'Debt' to be my loan payments and any 0% credit card debt that I'm carrying, so if real savings + debt >= 20%, I hit the target.

 

Needs: Things you MUST pay like rent/mortgage, groceries, gas, utilities, doctor, etc.

Wants: Things that are nice to have like dining out, alcohol, streaming services, entertainment, etc.

Savings/Debt: money that I transfer to the savings account and what's mentioned above.

 

I use Mint to track all the income/spend and can tag everything as a want/need/debt/income/savings item which is convenient. I track all this at a monthly level to ensure that I'm in the zone, and annual to see where I am at the aggregate. Some months have vacations where I'm spending 60% of my month's income on Wants, but there were many months where I only spent 15% on Wants, so it's good to see the average over time.

 

2020 YTD- expensive year. Didn't do so well, but Remainder+Savings+Debt still equaled 20%. Need to save more, but I was heavily investing in myself and career in 2019-2021. This is important later.

:Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 8.18.14 AM.png

 

2021 YTD: Another expensive year. Lowered my Want Spend by 5%. Still investing in myself.

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 8.16.46 AM.png

 

YTD 2022: Three years of investing in myself pays off with the gigantic promotion I spent 3 years working on. Now I've shifted up the 20% savings target to 35% and have moved to 45% Need, 20% Want, and 35% Savings/Debt. 

 

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 8.19.57 AM.png

 

A key point of 50/30/20 is that it's a baseline- you MIGHT start with 70% Need, 25% Want, and 5% savings, but you work towards moving the needle by making a plan and executing that plan. The beauty of this metric is that it's easy and lets me make a game out of saving money. I've been using this since 2018 in conjunction with all my other tools and it lets me set a goal and holds me accountable to that goal.

1/1/16 FICO8 Scores: EX: 407, EQ: 403, TU: 455
1/1/23 FICO8 Scores: EX: 832, EQ: 820, TU: 834
FICO9 EX: 818
Total Revolving Limits: $131,800

Message 16 of 19
MasonK
Frequent Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life


@Rspressburg wrote:

I obviously need to stop watching YouTube and stick strictly here. 


LOL. Yup. I hear the craziest things on YT channels. Even channels that have amazing production quality can have absolutely terrible information (my personal favorite was a guy saying that you can't have a high FICO score unless you are in major debt).

 

Everything I learned about credit was from here on the Forums; there are a ton of good people here who will point you in the right direction.

1/1/16 FICO8 Scores: EX: 407, EQ: 403, TU: 455
1/1/23 FICO8 Scores: EX: 832, EQ: 820, TU: 834
FICO9 EX: 818
Total Revolving Limits: $131,800

Message 17 of 19
nelson_xxiii
Regular Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life

Congrats on all your progress. Keep it up. I have a similar story so always good to see some success stories.

CURRENT FICO 8:





GOAL FICO 8 SCORES:




Mortgage 02/23 $370k | 2 Auto Leases $30k | 1 Personal Loan $2k | Rebuilding (No BK)
Message 18 of 19
OniStringer
Regular Contributor

Re: Rebuilding my life

Good job! Credit is a crazy journey especially when rebuilding, but you'll learn a lot here and YES, YOU WILL GET TO 800s, we all can. 

Started with LOW 500s - Actively rebuilding as of early 2019
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Message 19 of 19
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