Good evening all,
I am 34, and up until late 2020, I had decent scores in the low 700's.
I had a home loan for 192,000, an Amex with a 5000 limit, and a cap1 card with a 200 limit open.
When the pandemic came around earlier in the year though, things started going bad. I was laid off from my job, my wife was furloughed for some time, and this required me to use my cards to make ends meet. Additionally, this resulted in us being late 1 month on our house payment and everything got out of hand. We eventually were able to get on track with the home loan and remain current (unfortunately one payment in spring 2022 processed late, causing another late ding on both our reports). As for the cards, I was able to pay the 200$ on the capitol one and settle it (they closed the account/card due to being late). As for the Amex, I didn't mess with it because the balance was so high (5800).
In August, I applied for a Citi secured card, at the suggestion of Credit Karma to increase my score. It may have added like 10 points but that has been long negated as you'll see...
Fast forward to last month, we had a total loss incident requiring us to buy a new home. Our loan officer told us we needed to pay off our debts and instructed my wife to get a re-issue of one of her cards and charge 10$ on it. I called RadiusGlobal who had the account for my Amex and they told me they would settle for something like 3500$. I paid that and Amex sent me the letter in the mail stating it was settled. My score was 580+/- as told by creditwise and creditkarma. Now that my home loan has been paid off from the insurance claim, my score is around 490.
What are you alls suggestions as far as building my credit back up going forward. I have made all 3 payments to the Citi secured card so far, and that is the only line of anything I have open as of now, until our loan is finalized this next week. When I say suggestions, I mean is there any other advice you may have other than pay the house on time and maybe using a small amount and paying it off on the secured card.
Thank you all for any help and insight! I am here to listen and absorb!
