Congrats, you're doing everything right. Shhhh, don't question the Fico Score Gods! Just run
with it and keep up the great work. Fantastic job!
Best my scores have ever been!! 
Since 2008 I suffered some financial ruin after a divorce, job loss, slow job wage recovery, and some money mismanagement. It was a roller coaster that started with a 27K tax lien I knew nothing about (this is what happens when you don't verify if your husband actually paid the taxes he said he was paying when he had the returns in his hand, stamped and ready to mail.). Then a few years later I suffered 3 years of employment instability, and when I did finally gain stable employment I was making 60% less than I had been in the previous decade. Very terrifying and I almost lost my house, but managed to sell before it forclosed. The proceeds paid off my tax lien and some of my 45K in credit card and personal loan debt. At this point, I cancelled virtually all my CC's. Now I know, dumb move.
In the last 5 years, I've been working hard at cleaning up as much of my report as possible and paying off my remaining debt (about 25K), and in the last 3 years have opened 3 credit cards with a total of 15K limit, which are at < 1% utilization. My only debt is my car loan.
Now, since I'm so invested in my own financial future, I need to figure out what to do next, especially since paying off the last of my debt 2 years ago, I have saved a little nest egg. It will probably take the form of something boring like retrirement savings.
In the last week, my last late mortgage payments and last derogatories have dropped off of EQ and EX, and I have TWO scores over 800! Feeling good these days while I work on one last goodwill endeavor that's affecting TU. A few years ago a medical bill was sent to collections and I didn't know about it until I saw it on my report. Hopefully I can successfully clean that up. I'm researching how to best go about it.
EQ: 815
TU: 683
EX: 813
Thanks for sharing the details of your story and rebuild @Xerisca!
It's so helpful to our community.
Welcome to My FICO Forums! 
Appreciate your honesty and humility @Xerisca . Wish you the best on that collection.
I never really cared about my credit score. Already had a house, a great job, and didn't care that my credit cards were maxed. I never missed a payment and never really was in danger of it. I was a bank's fantasy customer....extremely reliable, but with my score, they could charge me any interest rate. I finally wised up and proactively tried to boost my score.
Looking back, my current scores save me so much money that it has a much larger impact than I had every conceptualized. No deposits required for adding lines to my cell phone plan, insurance rates are much lower, and wow what a difference 2.99% interest on a 6 year auto loan is compared to the 17.99% I was used to.
My fico scores hover between 810-835 now and I thank resources like this website for giving me the encouragement and information I needed to get them there.
@john316 wrote:Appreciate your honesty and humility @Xerisca . Wish you the best on that collection.
I never really cared about my credit score. Already had a house, a great job, and didn't care that my credit cards were maxed. I never missed a payment and never really was in danger of it. I was a bank's fantasy customer....extremely reliable, but with my score, they could charge me any interest rate. I finally wised up and proactively tried to boost my score.
Looking back, my current scores save me so much money that it has a much larger impact than I had every conceptualized. No deposits required for adding lines to my cell phone plan, insurance rates are much lower, and wow what a difference 2.99% interest on a 6 year auto loan is compared to the 17.99% I was used to.
My fico scores hover between 810-835 now and I thank resources like this website for giving me the encouragement and information I needed to get them there.
Thanks for sharing that, @john316, and welcome to the My Fico community!
It's testimonies that like that give encouragement to others trying to find hope for improvement.
Yes, having better credit helps in many ways!
I should have posted in the thread when my version 8s were at 845-850-850 lol. I've added new accounts and not been strictly managing util so current scores as of 12/2020 are: EXP8 786. TU8 819. EQ8 804. MMS is at least 772.
I came to credit late. Started in 2003 with a $1K Wells Fargo card that I never used even once. Sadly I closed that account in 2014 before I understood this FICO game. But that was enough of a scaffold to quickly get me to the credit heights I achieved when I got serious about my profile this year. It's a foundation of quicksand, but I am making the most of it before it falls off my report.
In Fall 2019, I bought an item on deferred interest financing from Dell. They approved $2K at 29.99APR (yikes). I didn't yet know how util worked, so I thought I should pay it down slowly to establish history. That mistake kept my scores around 700. In January 2020 I appd for Discover it Cashback and was approved for $500 (I'll take it!). In Feb 2020 I joined Navy and opened an SSL, immediately paid down to 8% remaining. I also paid my Dell tradeline down to <9% util. Those moves shot all my Fico8s above 800. I continued to use and pay off my Disco, allowing small balances to post.
In April 2020, I paid off the Dell line completely, and saw my first 850 with TU and EQ. Because of inquiries on EX, that score reached a ceiling of 845. I was there until I opened a new card in August 2020, then another in November. Since then I've been between 770 and 825, depending on util and inquiry hits. Now I'm gardening and waiting to see how high scores will go before I app for mortgage this year, and more cards after that.
To sum up, I got a ~100-130 point gain in 4 months on a thin but aged file, maxing out version 8 at 2/3 CRAs and with only 3 revolving lines, which were 1 retail and 2 bank (1 closed), plus one installment (non-mortgage). And TCL of only $2500. Just to smash a few common myths in one outlier DP!
March 2019: FICOs unknown, VS low 500s
Today: Hit 800 in a FICO 8 (Experian) for the first time yesterday. The other two are in the 760s and 770s.
How I got here: Removed three derogs, which resulted in me having clean and nearly blank credit reports; added a bunch of accounts; paid all my bills on time.
X factor: Massive credit-seeking behavior; in reality, my credit is "ok" rather than "great", because being 17/24 and 5/12 freaks some lenders out. While I easily qualify for the numeric part of the thread title, I do not consider myself a "high achiever". I am not sure, for example, if I could get a card from US Bank and I'm sure I could not get one from Chase. I was rejected for an NFCU Flagship in August, which was my most recent application/inquiry. But considering where I was and where I am now, I'm pleased. I could not have done it without this community.
