Re: Adding an installment loan -- the Share Secure... - Page 9 - myFICO® Forums

Anonymous · ‎05-01-2016

Three quick thoughts then.

If you are willing to bring your utilization down to 30% (great decision) I'd consider going a tiny step further and bringing it to < 28.9%. FICO rounds percents up to the next percent integer, so this way you will have a utilization of 29%, rather than 30 or 31. It's possible that there might be a breakpoint right there so it could give you a tiny boost.

Great plan to drastically reduce utilization and to create one card with a $0 balance. If you do this, you will get all the points you need and a good deal more. I would therefore not use the SS loan technique if I were you. (As discussed in the guidance, the technique won't help you once you have the car loan.)

I would also work on a goal of eventually paying off your CC debt completely (no need to do that right away) and then after that always pay your cards in full each month. That will help your score and eliminate the interest you are paying.

Anonymous · ‎05-01-2016

That's exactly what I intend to going forward. Whatever I charge is getting paid off from now on. I learned my lesson and I learned it well! LOL

Anonymous · ‎05-02-2016

@Absolution16 wrote:
I am rather glad that this thread has gotten the much deserved attention that it deserves. Wish everyone else that started down this path the best of luck!

My update:

My account is set up so that every 7th of the month was the date that auto payment was scheduled initially. As I have stated previously, I have deleted the auto payment arrangement after paying off the first $420 off the $500 loan for 5 years. Since then I made an additional payment to reduce the current balance to just above $43, which makes the account utilization ratio slightly below 9%.

I have elected to replace the first auto payment arrangement with a monthly payment of $0.25 about 3 business days before every 7th of the month. My current set up has it so that on Tuesday, the first $0.25 payment should go through. Alliant lets you arrange future payments upto 24 months ahead. This isn't an automatic option, but a "future" payment option, set on an exact date you specify. Auto pay option only allows me to set up an auto payment for $2.43 on May 7, 2020 and beyond. Instead of having to worry about checking back with the account every few months and losing track of it, I elected to just pay miniscule amount each month so that my balance doesn't go down so much until 2020 hits.

By sometime next week, I will find out whether or not the initial auto payment setup, which was deleted, still goes through, even if you have deleted it. I think Alliant reports to the bureaus right around the 7th of each month, so in about a week, my credit reports should all report less than 9% utilization on this loan, which will effectively remove one negative factor of having too much balance on my exisiting installment loan. It will also be interesting to see how much score increase I will see from doing this.

I am at a point where I am completely satisfied with my currently open accounts (5 newly opened credit cards and this one installment account), so I don't plan on opening any accounts for the next couple of years. Hopefully by the end of the year, all of my accounts that I created this year, including this one, has aged nicely and it is my hope that they all become accounts being paid as agreed, which isn't the case right now.

I will post more update next week after Alliant reports this account to the bureaus.

Good luck everyone, and thanks again to Dixie, Revelate, Jamie, and other contributors.

7th of each month??? ~~~~ how/where did you find this info??? i'm trying to find out when my SSL reports. it's been 3 wks and still not showing up on my CK report. =/

Anonymous · ‎05-02-2016

Hi Incubus. Whoops! I just read our friend Absolution's post more carefully. You indeed bold-faced the sentence you were interested in, but my display softened that: -- choosing to add a strong color (red or blue) may make it easier in the future. I am very sorry that I missed this originally.

Anyway, I do now see that he expresses his belief that Alliant reports all accounts to the bureaus around the 7th of every month.

In this he appears to be mistaken. My Alliant loan reported to TU and EQ on March 31, for example. I will try to solicit a few examples from people I know have Alliant loans. My guess is that the report dates will vary from person to person (though once it begins reporting for a particular person it will be fairly stable).

My advice for you, as per the guidance, would be to relax as much as you can, and use one of the free tools (e.g. Credit Karma) to pull your reports once a week. It's likely that you will see it sometime within the first six weeks that the account was opened.

In the meantime I will look to see if I can find a few other examples from other people to see if there is any pattern. Thanks for the question!

Absolution16 · ‎05-02-2016

Incubus and Dixie,

My credit report updated with the info regarding my Alliant installment account right after my first scheduled auto payment date, which I asked to be on the 7th of each month. The first update happened right after that first automatic payment went through on April 7. It is already May 2, and there have been no updates on my reports, so I am assuming that my next update on my credit reports will take place around the same time this month, which is about the 7th of this month.

Like Dixie speculated, my assumption is that everyone's update date on their credit reports will vary, mostly due to when you had your payment date set up. I am not 100% sure on this but it is a good guess at this point.

So no it is not set in stone that the credit report update date is on the 7th for everybody. It just seems to apply to me only. Your date will probably be different.

Anonymous · ‎05-03-2016

fwiw, i sent SM and here's what i got:

Hello,

We report loans at the end of every month. However, the credit bureaus might take a few days to update the information on their end.

Sincerely,
D~"

CreditMagic7 · ‎05-03-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
fwiw, i sent SM and here's what i got:

Hello,
We report loans at the end of every month. However, the credit bureaus might take a few days to update the information on their end.
Sincerely,
D~"

That's exactly what i seen too.

I get an email alert the very last day of every month now from Alliant CU that the statement is ready.

Revelate · ‎05-03-2016

@CreditMagic7 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
fwiw, i sent SM and here's what i got:

Hello,
We report loans at the end of every month. However, the credit bureaus might take a few days to update the information on their end.
Sincerely,
D~"

That's exactly what i seen too.
I get an email alert the very last day of every month now from Alliant CU that the statement is ready.

Yup, I get my consolidated statement at the end of the month and that was reflected on the DOLA on my reports; I simply assumed they were an end-of-month reporter.

Anonymous · ‎05-03-2016

Thanks Incubus. I asked several people last week who I knew had obained Alliant loans what the "date reported" was on their credit reports. The answers I got back in the last day or two allsaid the same thing, e.g. March 31.

I was just about to post this, since I knew you were especially interested, but I see you beat me to it! Good for you.

SouthJamaica · ‎05-03-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
fwiw, i sent SM and here's what i got:

Hello,
We report loans at the end of every month. However, the credit bureaus might take a few days to update the information on their end.
Sincerely,
D~"

That's consistent with my experience. Seems to report to bureaus on the 1st, wends its way to MyFICO by the 4th or the 5th.