What should my next step be?

[iandesmama]

Mortgage lender ran our credit in October 2015 to give us a timeline of how long it may take to rebuild/qualify for a loan. On the reports, it listed scores for Beacon 5.0, Classic 04, Fair Isaac 2. They take the median score from all three, which was 486 for me. (Now that I'm typing that out, I'm not sure how that actually works.)

We PDF our biggest collections account a couple of months ago. I opened a secured Cap1 card in Feburary and have been making more than minimum balance on time since then, and my score has been steadily increasing. My Transunion is 520 and my Equifax is 554. I recently also opened a credit account at a mattress store (they report monthly to all 3 bureaus) and have been making those payments on time as well. I got approved for the Fingerhut FreshStart program, but haven't made a purchase yet.

What should my next step be to keep the scores rising? I do have quite a few medical bills (totalling les than $5000) and 2 accounts that were charged off in 2013, but did not respond to PFD offers. Should I open a new secured card? Buy something on Fingerhut to make that account active? Just do what I've been doing and be patient?

[RonM21]

Continue to do what you are doing. On the Fingerhut, maybe make a small.purchase go have it active, but pay it on time. Also, do not give up on the PFD goodwills with the charge offs. Sometimes it tskes multiple times. Try keeping your credit balance on the credit cards down to 1 to 9% utilization every cycle, and pay the installments on time. Your score will keep rising and once you get into the 600's, things will change and there will be more options for you. Best of luck!