October 2018 Check-In Thread

[Kenny]

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 checkins 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! 

[Revelate]

Plan of just holding pat and cleaning up my finances while keeping my credit on hold went unexpectedly well for some reason.

+30 something on EQ FICO 5 at the end of last month, no idea why but I'll take it .  Waiting to update my signature heh.

Also finally had a balance report so no longer all zeros (oddly, that +30 was with all zeros even so might be even better after that!), and just going to be paying down the HELOC as I can for the rest of the year which should help my EX FICO 2 at least though admittedly funding the retirement accounts takes precedence.

Will be writing a few letters to the OC of my delinquent tradeline: I don't have any plans for any applications at all until my gig is over and then will re-evaluate (somewhere between 6 months and 2 years, hard to say right now) and so just holding pat to see where I wind up for the beginning of next year... I know I set my goal scores as just utterly random after I had a stupid mistake and wound up with some lates on a tradeline, but while I'm going to likely miss the aforementioned EX FICO 2, I might actually get my EX FICO 8 to 750, awfully close now and that late does tick over six months in October, fingers crossed!

Hope everyone's credit plans are going well, or at least less awkwardly than mine has this past year!

[Anonymous]

So disappointed - I have to start all over again.  my Transunion score just plummeted 68 points - credit factor? I have to check my payment history - I have not been late paying anything recently. The late payment that shows on my credit report is from 2015 and 2016 - two to three years ago. I have not been late since. And...it shows on my credit report that the accounts are current. I'm not sure if this is the right reason, and I've looked thoroughly, I don't see anything else that would cause such dive...

The one thing I do know is that I have applied for a lot of credit in this month - about 6 but I don't think it would be brought down so low??? I 

Has this happened to anyone before? I've been working so hard...ugh! 

Here are my current scores:

EX653(+13)

TU 598(-69)

EQ(+41)

[Revelate]

Applying for a bunch of credit with limited history can do that, I lost a bunch of points when I first started establishing my accounts.

Doesn't matter in the slightest, now that you have them, just sit on your hands for a year and let your scores improve.

Credit and FICO scores are a long game, there are a few quick fixes (getting derogatory information deleted) but beyond that we all get cozy when it comes to improving it.  Ultimately you have started down the road to establishing positive credit which is a huge step, and the interstitial scores don't matter

[Anonymous]

Emtwo,

Another factor can be your utilization (doubt that’s reporting yet) but it’s most likely the accounts and average age of accounts. Don’t worry it’ll get better with time. Double check your accounts make sure there isn’t any inaccurate info. A year ago a collection I had no idea of dropped my scores 70+ points for an already satisfied debt. Recently got that removed and gained the points back.

[Anonymous]

Last month was very successful. Was able to move scores from fair to good average. My plan for the month is to continue to sit on my hands and request soft pull increases. How tempted the mail offers from Citi, Amex, and pre approvals from Chase I’m going to hold out. I want high limits and low interest rates and I don’t think my scores will guarantee that. I applied for tally which was a soft pull. I was approved but recently Recieved an email for verification so I will see how that goes. I’m curious if this line will report to credit bureaus or invisible like PayPal credit.

Ofcourse, I will continue to pay down balances. Utilization is at 53%(updated I thought it was 59%) compared to 88-94% at the end of August and Beginning of September. I hope to see atleast a 10pt increase this month.

Good luck everyone with their goals and plans this month.

[Anonymous]

@revelate and @brownsugav

Thanks so much for your response;  I am encouraged. I am just going to continue to work with what I have now until scores improve because making other changes and adding new credit. 

Thanks again! Good Luck everyone!

[Anonymous]

Strangely my Transunion score went up today by 30points... I didn't see any changes either. I also got a credit limit increase from my Blaze master card for $250, bringing my credit limit to $600 from $350.

[excop01]

UPDATE TIME.

Well today my score with tu went up 20 points, my eq went up a whooping 2 points and my exp went up 5 points. 

tu 638

eq 616

exp 651

As i said before got an increase of 2000 dollars on my discover card and went from secured to unsecured. 

I looked at my mont wards card today and it went up 200 dollars yesterday. None of these have been reported

to the cr yet. But i went to the stimulator on tu to see what my score could possibly go up to, and its looking like 

669 on tu. but on exp the stimulator their stays the same. Eq i just dont know, they just seem to be  so difficult to 

deal with on all fronts. I rather have a tooth pulled than have to call eq. 

So i went to credit karma to see what they were reporting. Fako score of 655 lol so i always have to subtract 17 to 21 points whenever im looking at those scores. But i was looking the the credit cards they were recommending. I know i cant totally believe everything they say with credit card, but i must admit it was nice to see for a change some real serious credit cards on my list even tho they were fair odds. Thing like american express cash , american express hilton and a few others in that  lineup. I realizie in the real world that my scores need to be a bit higher than they are now to get approved for those kinds of cards, but it was very nice seeing that im getting close to that level.

I know i havent applied for a new card as of yet  in over a year. And i know its time for me to do it in order to keep my score growing and showing a higher limit and able to show that i can handle credit.  Trust me when i tell ya, im scared to death. I dont want to lose any points. even tho the stimulator says i wont. But it will kill my credit age, considering 2 of the credit agencies have closed my one of my acct that isnt really close at all. Ive been working hard to get this turned around. but they are just giving me hell, even after i called the creditor and told them, well if this acct is going to show closed on my cr, i might as well close it, cause its not doing me any good with my credit age and all that. My newest acct which is a self lender acct is only like 5 months old. i was going to wait till that got to 6 months to be sure i wont be killed with a hit. Im not trying to get another secure card, nor a store card, just dont want to get tempted with buying too much. However, a decent card would be great. Anyway im rambling again, so any advice would be cool. 

[Anonymous]

Emtwo,

Congratulations on the cli’s!