December 2018 Check-In Thread

[Kenny]

As we approach the holidays, the stress of overspending can be tremendous.  What steps are you taking so that you ring in the New Year not drowning in debt? What new ideas or plans do you have so that 0% promos don't sway you away from your goals?  If you have a plan or strategy that you would like to share, please do! 

I know you are all hard at work with your credit goals.  Have you progressed as far as you hoped?  Were there any unforseen expenses that cropped up and may have thrown you off schedule?

As a reminder, participation in these monthly check-ins is optional, but encouraged. The goal is to help keep you on track, so feel free to post your progress updates here. This is a no-judge zone; feel free to say what's keeping you up at night or give yourself a kudo for having it all together.

Did you hit any potholes or speedbumps? Achieve some milestones, either small or mighty? Change your goals or add new ones?

Let us know how you're doing!

What have been your biggest accomplishments

and obstacles so far in the myFICO Fitness Challenge this year?

[Anonymous]

Good morning. Checking in for the month of December. Getting closer to the 700 goal I want to achieve to start 2019. Paid every credit card down from holiday shopping. 2 cards with a balance, both my lightest limits. I want to attempt to end the year debt free and start 2019 out different than I did 2018. Hope everyone has a great month and achieve their goals.

[Anonymous]

My inquiries from Discover, Fingerhut, & Indigoall trickling in. Experian went down a point, but Transunion went up 2nd.

Running into a hiccup where the debit card I use to pay my accounts got locked during pending and the payment was returned. Hoping the payment is fully processed before Capital One reports.

Still waiting on Discover and Indigo cards. Trekking along.

EXCELSIOR

[newmomnewme]

MANY THANKS TO THIS FORUM!

In 2014, you all helped me clean up my credit and I sat happily at 711 for a few months...too soon after, I picked up a gambling habit and amassed 150k in debt (casino credit, cash advances and loans).

I started 2018 with 12 cc maxed, 3 unpaid collections, 2 30-day lates, and a few new personal loans.

As of today, I paid all three collections (sending GW this week) and two loans. I got a 2nd job, cancelled my spring vacations, took a break from the casino, and gave myself a spending limit for the holidays.

My mom sold me 6000 sq ft of land and Id like to build a house there next summer....so my December goal is to keep paying my debt down and GW like crazy. I need to improve my scores before looking for financing.

Best of luck all!!!

[Anonymous]

Great job fighting out of that hole, hope u stay strong battling your addiction

[ThaDude]

Found it! First time in the 2018 check in thread in the last month. I will be present all 12 months in ‘10.”!!

Started out the year upper 500s have made it upper 600s. The push thru the holidays, once it is over I am working on a plan to pay down bout half of the 10k CC debt in 2019 whilst saving for a house, looking to move early September. Just need to finetune the budget sync it with the wifes’ budget and go sit down and garden.

[CaptCami]

I'm a newb and so glad to be here!

The clean-up began in July 2018, all scores around 515. July 2017 they were around 488, the worst my scores have ever been. As of December 2018 I'm made it over the 600 hump, Ex 605, Tu 617, Eq 604. I've been working on this all by myself and I'm glad to have found this forum! Inspiration at every click! Motivation to stay focused! 

120k student loan debt. No mortgage. Cap one plat. 1k.  Reporting 35% util. Inquiries: Exp 4. Tu 0. Eq 1. 

I'm keeping my goals simple. 641 is my next score goal, obviously not the end goal. Garden until 3/19 when one inq drops from exp. and a few old late payments drop as well. Getting CC util down to 10% and then possibly a CLI on my cc? Gardening personally as well and is going better than planned. 

I'm still trying to figure out how to put those fancy cards in my signature 

Goal card, Hilton Honors AMEX Ascend or Aspire.

[Anonymous]

Checking in for the last time this year, and what a year it has been!  First off I wanted to Thank everyone in the community that takes the their time to help others just let me reach our goals.  I will tell anyone that is want to build their credit scores and learn a lot this is the place to come.  It is really hard for me to even think about where I was just 10 months ago when I first did my first Check-In.  Here is a recap of what I have been able to accomplish this past year.

My starting FICO 8 scores were as follows

EQ 659

TU 698

EX 701

I have seen some ups and downs over the last 10 months as I finished cleaning everything up on my report, but I am finally seeing my scores hold steady now.  My goal for the year was to get all of my scores to 700.  Current scores are as follows

EQ 771 up 112 points in 10 months

TU 758 up 60 points in 10 months

EX 777 up 76 points in 10 months

My second goal was to increase my CLI to 100K.  I am sure that there was a lot of people who were being nice and didn't say anything about this crazy goal I set.  Looking back I laugh at thinking that I could go from a $11K CLI to $100K in 10 months.  However, as I look at my report this morning my total CLI is $128K.  

I am also very proud of the fact that I feel that I was able to do this the right way by adding a couple of cards that not only benefit me with the way I spend by all of the cards I have added have been top tier cards.  I added just 5 cards after not adding any cards over to past 2 years.  Here are the cards I added and their current CLI.

AX Delta Gold - CL $40K

Chase Sapphire Preferred - $18,700

Chase Southwest Airlines - $21,400

Citi AA - $10,400

PenFed Platinum rewards - $5000

I also recieved a CLI on my NFCU Flagship card and my CapitalOne card this year.

Over all I can say that I am very pleased and am looking forward to 2019 for even bigger and better things.  Again, Thanks to everyone here for sharing with everyone your great knowledge.

[Anonymous]

I found this forum a little over a month ago and a lot has happened. I've absorbed a lot of info from you guys and am VERY grateful.

I started out with scores in the mid-500s. I was able to settle on my one baddie account and wipe out a majority (but not all) of my debt with a settlement. My scores went up by about 70-ish points (the settlement lost me some points, but the drastic reduction in debt gained me more points).

This month I set up a program with my bank to lower the interest on my remaining CC debt so I have lower monthly payments but am paying the debt off much, much sooner. Utilization will go down much, much sooner too. I am so thrilled about this! My finances are improving and I hope to wipe out the remaining debt sometime next year, but if that is delayed, at least I am not scraping by quite as much now!

I also decided to bite the bullet and send in a correction to TU, who still thinks I owe the big debt to the bank (they have not updated my report to reflect the settlement). Hopefully, that will get fixed soon and my TU score will go up as EQ and EX have already.

I only have one open credit card, the Green Dot Secured. It's just for credit building purposes, but has proven itself to be very useful. The other day I was mailing something off and the Post Office kiosk wouldn't take debit cards if you don't know the PIN. (I didn't know the PIN!) So thank goodness for the Green Dot—it saved the day as the kiosk didn't require a PIN for CCs. I'm obsessively paying off any balance on the Green Dot so it stays under 9% utilization (or at least under 30%!)

I'm looking forward to 2019 with better financial and credit choices and also maybe I can pick up a few more cards (starting with the Discover secured).

[Revelate]

Late checkin, this year's been all over the map.

Will detail out the full tale in the 2019 thread, but this year has been a crazy credit one and also financially too.  The latest such iteration Experian up and whacked the tradeline that I picked up a 30D late on this year, no idea why, but I re-broke 800 on EX FICO 8, and that's with 3 inquiries and a new account, and a non-trivially utilized credit card too.  Basically fits my definition of gold plated on that bureau.

Could well be another Oujia board exercise for next year's goal scores but I paid off the ugly debt I had, got started on the HELOC, and my credit isn't in as bad a spot as I thought it would be at this time after I rejiggered my goals ater that stupid 30D late.

Anyway hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday!