So I decided to get score watch as I am trying to rebuild my credit 
Background- Chapter 7 Bankrputcy discharged Oct 4th, 2012. 4 accounts were "Included in bankrupcty" 4 others "Accounts paid Satisfactory" 4 accounts "In good standing"
Hard Inquiries 5
Merchant Card- $0 owed $7500 Limit Opened 11/09
Cap1 CC- $147 owed $300 Limit Opened 12/13
Cap1 CC- $697 owed $1000 Limit Opened 03/14
Barclay's CC- $375 owed $750 Limit Opened 03/14
Student Loan's- $2335 owed (Still fulltime student) Will be taking out $3k this next year.
I am planning on paying off all my CC debt next week, this is the first time I've carried a balance I did it just once and paying all of them off. I am trying to "garden" for awhile and get my credit back in line... I have no collections or past dues, however I have $6100 in debt from medical bills- I switched careers and let my health insurance lap and literally the week after it cancelled I ended up in the hospital. I have kind of buried my head in the sand from these bills as I have tried contacting them to work with me with no luck.. I am excellent at negotiating and on something like this I expect to pay no more than $3000 except these people wont budge a freakin penny. I have 2 calls in to managers and a few emails out trying to reduce this debt.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated- My fiance has awesome credit 770's, never late on anything and has been extremely disciplined. We are currently buying our 2nd investment home in her name however we are getting maxed out on her debt to income ratio (can't go over 45%) and we are nearing the mark with this next home purchase due to the fact that both cars are in her name, and 2 houses currently in her name adding a 3rd to it shortly if our offered is accepted. I am looking to maximize my options and get my $hit back in line so that I can take on more things and actually start getting my things straight. Been a rough road, soon as I get a little ahead something tends to go wrong and back to where I started.
Any tips/advice etc. would be fantastic- I have been reading researching etc. and I have a lot better understanding of how things and how things work. I usually charge up $300-500 a month on my cards and PIF. I just recently moved and charged up the Uhaul so that's why my cards have balances. Thanks in advance
Welcome to the forums!
You can charge as much as you need on the credit cards (TBH I run my entire financial life through mine and I would suggest everyone potentially should do the same) but the important key is paying before the statement date from a FICO perspective, and that way you can manage what balances are reported to the bureau.
The common opinion which is a good starting point is simply let one credit card report a balance between 1-9% of it's CL, and have the rest report zero. This isn't quite optimal (as it varies by lender) but it's 96% or thereabouts.
I likewise had to get my poop in a group regarding credit a few years back so I know what you're going through; end of the day don't spend more than you can afford, never be late on a payment, and never pay less than the minimum and FICO-wise you're well setup to improve your score over time... it's just a slow process rebuilding out of a BK (or in my case, tax liens) so be prepared to be patient with your scores over time as credit building and maintenance is a long term goal.
Research and post over in the Rebuilding regarding the collections, a lot of good information there for addressing them and other negatives.
@Kazuya wrote:
I just recently got score watch too and am curious, so does the score uodate and show me my new score everytime it goes up or down by lets say 10 points or how does it work? Will it give me a whole new report? Just the score? Or only the alert with me having to pay to see the concrete number and report if I want details?
Basically you get a report when you purchase (and I think there's a second report available at some point) as a baseline, and then it tracks changes on the credit report from this baseline. You get a score update with the changes (new tradelines, balance changes, etc) in my experience even if it's no change in score (I have tons of "The balance on one of your credit cards increased by $39, 672 +0" or something to that effect).
About the only thing I haven't found that it does well, is when things like inquiries fall out of scoreable range (or off the report) doesn't appear to be a notification, may be the same with other records too as I'm about to find out on tax liens as the IRS approved the paperwork I finally sent in to get a lien airstruck.