September 2018 Check-In Thread

[Kenny]

*I sincerely apologize for the late post this month!
My life has been a little hectic lately. I will try my
hardest to make sure this won't happen again.*

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! 

[Anonymous]

Good morning All!

I have been waiting for September Check-In but nothing yet so I thought I just show my update from the month of August. I honestly feel motivated! I have been working very very hard to pay off what I owe in collections and pay my credit card balances down to zero. I was successfully able to pay down all of my credit card balances except for one of my capital one cards - I charged it and had the money to pay it back on the due date, unfortunately, the transactions did not clear until the next day after the bill was due. I was really annoyed because I wanted all of my cards to show a zero balance - although I wasn't charged a finance charge, I still wanted that zero balance. lol.  I was able to pay all of the collections on my credit report except for the Toyota  collections which I really do not want to pay - I called the collections department to see if they'll be willing to take the settlement I offered and they wanted more, so, I just left it alone - while I want to take care of this balance I really feel like it's not something I should be paying and it really sucks. Another thing about the collections on my credit report is that there are items on my Equifax report that I have already paid which is not showing as paid and I am not sure why it's taking so long to update - perhaps it has already been adjusted but just not on the free credit report sites that I am currently using to monitor my credit. 

Here is my update:

Month of July

TU: 573

EX: 592

EQ: 561

Month of August

TU: 667(+94)

EX: 640(+48)

EQ: 614(+53)

My goal this month of September is to push my score to the 700s; however, I also want to add some credit cards this year - specifically the capital one venture card, Discover Card and possibly an American Express. I also want to apply for a private student loan.

Is it too early to want to apply for these cards? Should I continue to work what I have maybe until the end of the year? I have a couple of cards that got to help build my credit that have very high finance charges that I want to get rid of - Blaze Master Card and Credit One Bankcard. Should keep them until I have a higher credit limit card and then drop them or should I keep them until the end of the year? Oh, by the way, I got a $100 Credit Limit increase on one of my Capital One cards. Any advice will be highly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

yay! I just pulled the trigger and applied for a venture one and I got approved for $1000! I was nervous and wasn't sure but I did it anyways - I did this after I applied for my private student loan which I really needed to apply for. I applied to two companies and was feeling bumped that it will impact my credit I have been working so hard to build and I thought why not just go for it and boom! I got approved excited.

I also pulled the trigger for a discover it card and got approved for $500 CL which I'm excited about. I am thinking about closing my high-interest rate cards: Credit One and Blaze Master Card - I will wait for a few months and just close them after my credit has pumped up to meet my goal. I have done a lot of pull, I will now stop and work with what I have.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting this, Kenny.

Things are good on my end. 

So far, I have paid my my $3k collections to $2.4K on a payment plan, and I am doing well in paying off my Wells Fargo charge-off.

[Anonymous]

This is my first-ever check in! I'm excited to get started!

My baseline for 2018 starting out was 645 (as you can see in my signature), and my score has risen only about 32 points so far. One major reason was because I went on a cruise in May and had large amounts left over on my card when I got back. I've paid that $1k down, though, and currently only have $50 on that card! One big development was that my Credit One card that I got earlier this year raised its limit for 6 months of on-time payments from $2k to $5k! I also applied for my first AMEX card in August and got approved for $5k out the gate! I currently now have 4 credit cards and won't be looking to add any any time soon, I'm very happy with the amount of credit I've got so far, about $13k total. I'm honestly surprised I have that much given my age. 

My hope is to keep everything on track and break 700 this year, which has been elusive for me for a while. Last month was the first time I broke into the 'good' category of credit ratings, so I'm excited! 

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

This is my first-ever check in! I'm excited to get started!

My baseline for 2018 starting out was 645 (as you can see in my signature), and my score has risen only about 32 points so far. One major reason was because I went on a cruise in May and had large amounts left over on my card when I got back. I've paid that $1k down, though, and currently only have $50 on that card! One big development was that my Credit One card that I got earlier this year raised its limit for 6 months of on-time payments from $2k to $5k! I also applied for my first AMEX card in August and got approved for $5k out the gate! I currently now have 4 credit cards and won't be looking to add any any time soon, I'm very happy with the amount of credit I've got so far, about $13k total. I'm honestly surprised I have that much given my age. 

My hope is to keep everything on track and break 700 this year, which has been elusive for me for a while. Last month was the first time I broke into the 'good' category of credit ratings, so I'm excited! 

---

Thanks for sharing this!

I am shocked to read that Credit One gave you a CLI to $5K -- I thought the max. CL for that card is $3K. 

Congrats on the AMEX approval!

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

So I just paid off my last collections from Toyota! That was a tough one to pay, but I did it! Done! I closed my Credit One Bank card; I wasn't interested in paying anohter dime in annual fee for a low-quality card. I am grateful to them tho, for giving me credit when no one would approve me for a credit card. I think I saw something like a $16 balance on my credit report from them - I sincerely hope not because I was told that I had paid everything in full and did not have any charges whatsoever. I hope they are telling the truth. I am excited about where I am with paying stuff back - however, I think I have started moving too fast like the speed of light by adding more inquiries to my report.  I have signed up for multiple cards already - and I applied for a student loan which I need for school. Will this hurt my credit score significantly? I got the Amazon Prime Store (Chase Card) - $500 CL, Discover - $500 CL, Venture One - $1000, and a  Banana Republic Store card - $300. Hopefully, as I start to make payments, my credit score will continue to be bumped up. 

I hope this is a good move; I do not intend to apply for any other cards again until next year. I plan to close my last annual fee card at the end of the year when my score has gone up a bit more since I already paid the this year's annual fee. I don't get to pay another until next year April, so I'll just ride it out until the end of the year - I may need it for some emergency or so. 

[Gratitude]

It's been a time of Life challenges....

During such time, seems i've been in a Gardening coma (Gold Spade) and unfortunately havent had the opportunity to keep up here on the forum, etc.

Some goals - not yet reached

Some goals - in pursuit of..

Some goals - hit:

• AMEX BCE 2nd 3x CLI approved $6K to $18K this month;
• unexpected auto CLI from Chase Freedom from $500 - $2000 (recon approval 2017 - forgotten 10yr old charge-off) 
• credit score increase - beyond goal (now stalled).

but its time to move onto more calculated changes. Will post in Credit Card thread.

[excop01]

Hello, 

Well i havent post in a few weeks cause i was getting discouraged. But today......oh today was a wonderful day. 

I was at work, checked my cell and saw that i had a message from discover. I was wonder to myself, what are they 

talking about now? I pulled it up and lord and behold i got a 2000 dollar credit increase after 12 months with the secured

card. Oh i was so happpppppy, i was wondering was this so called analyzing your acct to see if u could be switched to 

unsecure thing was really true. 

As i have read many post here, everyone keeps saying dont give up, be patient all the encouraging things of course, i was wondering

was my day ever going to come where i could tell someone that same thing. lololol boy today is my day.  They say patience isavirtue. Boy they werent lying. Now i hope this opens the doors for me to get one more card that i  really want.  Capital one. hell ill take any of them. 

The main thing is i finally feel like my hard work is starting to show. I wonder what my score will do now?

I havent applied to anyone in over a year now, i got the self lender acct, and have been paying that down everymonth on time. So i only have 2 inquires in a year. but i have to wait till march so the 10 inquires for a car i bought in 17 fall off, that will leave me with only 2 inquires in 2 years. I CANT  wait for march. Im hoping my score will be near 650 butright now at 614, sucks to be me. lolol but hell its come a long way from 530. 

I still have some baddies up there from hospital bills that should have been paid by the VA, but i have a lawyer working on that now. so hopefully they will be gone.  Man im just ranting on. wow. let me shut up.  

anyway good luck to everybody.  Im keeping the faith. and Thank you to the entire community. cause i sit here late at night and read you entries for hours. lol no life. lolol 

[Anonymous]

Best wishes!