Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge 2020!

[M_Smart007]

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@janderson126 wrote:

I appreciate the note =  )  is there anything missing you would say? 

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@janderson126, You are welcome. I would say read as much as you can,

 and if you are unsure about something? post a a question in the appropriate thread asking.

Plenty of GREAT people here are always willing to help out

Take care & enjoy The Forums.

[Anonymous]

If you have debt on credit cards try and get those balances paid down. I have heard owe no more than 30% from some perople here, but others say optimum credit card debt level is less than 7%.

[janderson126]

Great advice : ) I have heard between 1-7 % however I understand that each persons can varry

[Anonymous]

I have been avoiding putting it all down in writing, but here goes. I am ready to finally deal with 18 years of a rollercoaster of bad credit. It started out getting a couple CC at 18 that I had no idea what to do with properly and then a whole lot of thinking I could pay bills on my time. Lots of collections and lots of negative reporting. I washed those all off with time (and re-aged many by using a certain service that did not help me, just hit dispute every month on every account in my CRs, but also got through those with most dropping off or being dealt with) and went to school....a lot. It was during a time where they couldn't hand you money fast enough without truly giving you the proper knowledge of what you were getting into. Now I have 96k in student loans that are in default. I have avoided credit because I knew I would never be approved. I have kissed the 600s, but only visited and never stayed. Things were turning up and me and my husband each had a new car, better jobs, and we were working out our credit. Then my mother and sister got the "C" word. There went my retirement savings, bills didn't get paid, and everything went bye-bye as far credit goes. I was running to the pharmacy multiple times a day with what money I could scrape together to pay for the prescriptions that insurance would no longer cover for my mother. My husband has his car repossessed and I had to sell mine right after it was paid off for the money. I missed a lot of work and ran out of earned leave. Both of them passed even with all the efforts. Then after even further lows with payday loans, overdrafted bank accounts, fully defaulted student loans, and getting evicted, I decided to leave my job and I know it sounds crazy. Best thing I ever did after 15 years working there. My income has easily tripled and I am much happier. I now finally got to a stable point and really want to work out the credit issues.

Not much remains after 15 years, but the more recent stuff does. I have:

6 collection accounts I would like to get off my credit. Most are 5 years old. So I plan to work out GW letters, PFD or PFR, or just settle if all else fails. Maybe they will just drop off too.

Get revolving credit. I have none and none reporting and that is a big hit. I did manage to just get approved for a VS CC through the SCT. Not much, but it is a start. I know this isn't revolving credit, but I also got Self Lender loan, and it has been helping. I am 50% paid off on that. I am going to do a second round with it for the 1500 and get the secured CC at the end so I don't have such a low SL. I wish I had just done this initially, but I heard the amount didn't matter, but I didn't realize they offered a CC with it.

Student Loans. I am working these out currently 1 lender at a time to get into the rehab program. I have 3 or 4 seperate lenders with 11 total accounts listing on the fed website, yet I have 19 accounts reporting negative monthly...this is gonna take some more research and a lot of work.

Aging accounts. Many have negative marks and I am wondering if I should let them be or try to GW the late marks. Some accounts are reporting as CO when they are PIF. Should I challenge these or let them be and let them  eventually drop off?

Any other insights would be appreciated on this journey. I guess I should be gardening even though my garden only has one or two flowers and a lot of weeds. Not much I can do with my scores as of now, I guess.

I have 0-1 inquiry on my CRs, 6 collections, lots of student loans reporting negative or closed due to transfer to collection or when  a couple were consolidated 15 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Oh and my goals are to clean up my CR to buy a home in the next 3 years.

[M_Smart007]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Oh and my goals are to clean up my CR to buy a home in the next 3 years.

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@Anonymous, Great goals!  ..

Keep in mind, you do not want to apply for any credit cards one year prior to a Mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! I will definitely write that down in my list!

[Anonymous]

I started this journey with deciding that I was finally going to take back control of my credit and stop ignoring it. First step was signing up to get my report and then making a plan to pay off my collections as the time. My goal for this year is to complete paying off all collections (Completed Feb 2020), getting a new card with a CL over 5k, and getting my score as close to 700 as possible. So far I have been a lurker and all your advise and previous questions has helped me navagate a lot of waters so far

[janderson126]

Good to hear that you are on track for some good goals it sounds like 

I did want to ask how are you liking that credit lender I have heard some things about it but not sure on it not saying I want it for sure but more of your thoughts on it. Thanks

[financialfreedom777]

Soooo, I am a bit late here but was shocked that my credit score dropped by an average of 20pts for my 2 credit card applications in Jan.

1st wk of Jan I applied for  Khols card (got $300 limit) and MyRewards Visa Card from Childrens Place ($400) limit and my scores dropped 15-20 average across the board. Am in shock its dropped! Though, I am super pleased with all the rewards and discounts I get from my childrens place visa card (coupons and rewards that are stackable during purchase).

Goodies: Fingerhut account I rarely use, open since 2016 and always ontime. I have a self lender am paying (also always ontime-bout 6months in now), a closed Discover Card I have been paying off (ontime 18months so far but it once reached 120days late).

Baddies: a closed Amazon Card (paid) and charged-off Chase Card with balance, I pay this off slowly but since its chargeoff they do not report the payments, just the new lower balances.

In Feb I was offered a preapproved credit card offer from First Premier for $400. After  posting this on the threads I was urged not to take the offer from this predatory lender and it woke me up from my trance. I've since trashed the offer and just decided to keep paying off as I can on my limited income and pray my scores will improve.

🙏🏽