So, I'm an idiot. Help!

[Anonymous]

I'm a year in with rebuilding credit. Currently I have 2 cc's W/ balances and that is why I'm an idiot. I thought keeping high balances on the cards while making on-time well over min pymts would show responsibility and improve my score. I did mention I'm an idiot, right?

After spending the day perusing the forums to learn why my scores aren't budging, I've now had a slap in the face lesson on utilization. Here's my plan, will this help me and if so an estimate on how much?

CapOne Platinum $500 CL $487 Balance no lates

Fingerhut $700 CL $298 Balance no lates

Tomorrow I plan on paying CapOne $300 and $100 on Fingerhut and not use either.

Before my next stmt pay $140 left on CapOne leaving $40 and pay Fingerhut off.

I've been stuck for 6 months with my scores barely budging and no pre-approves for anything but subprime and now I know why. By going into my next reporting month I'd like to see a significant bump. I checked Discover pre-approved last night and qualified for a secured card, I'd like to change that to unsecured.

Current

TU 602

EX 619

EQ 598

Comments? Advice?

[Pikaboo-icu]

Welcome to My Fico.. 

You're not an idiot, trust me, nobody comes out of the womb knowing this stuff.. lol

It's a learning experience for us all.

I think your plan sounds very good and should help quite a bit.

Do you have any instalment loans? Of any type?

If not a small secured loan could help your score a lot too.

CHEERS 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks for the welcome!

No, I don't have any installment loans and that's actually why I need to get my score improved. I'm currently driving a paid off vehicle that's costing me ridiculous amounts in repairs. I will need to buy another vehicle soon, hopefully after the first of the year. My plan was to add another cc and show perfect payments for a year but with my scores stuck I was getting worried.

Is it better to add another revolving acct or show low utilization for a few months then get an auto loan?

[kilroy8]

The Cap One looks like a credit steps one so small growth in CL should be automatic with timely payments. Fingerhut is a bottom feeder, pay it and sock drawer it.

I would stand pat and focus on getting rid of baddies, you must have some with that score. With those weighing you down, you are stuck in subprime land.

[Anonymous]

I have 3 baddies on my reports. The first I wrote about on here earlier. It's a $51 collection acct from Sprint.

2nd is a 9K charge off from BOA from my divorce 3 years ago. The acct was in my ex-husbands name but reported on my report as I was an authorized user. BOA won't discuss the acct with me so I'm at a loss at how to deal with it.

3rd is one 30 day late 2 years ago on my now paid off vehicle.

Not good at all but I've hit a wall with them.

[Revelate]

Post that CO negative over on Rebuilding, might be a reasonably easy way to get that off as AU's can be funny.

As for the rest: the $51 collection (also post that up on Rebuilding) isn't going to hurt you for most non-CU auto lenders, and even some CU's have transitioned to newer scores (FICO 8 / FICO 9), and a 30D late from 2+ years ago isn't the end of the world... I had more history than you but I got up to 770ish with one around that same age and actually my current scores in my signature have a 30D from just a few months ago on EX/EQ for reference.

As for a small share secured loan: it can definitely help if you pick it up and prepay it down to a small number (like 5% of the original balance) assuming from your postings that you don't have an open installment loan currently; not sure what the current recommended place to do that is but @Anonymous is basically the resident expert on that technique these days.

[kilroy8]

Try to get the one from Sprint off of there some way, that would help a bunch. The BOA thing is just going to be with you for 7 years, but you can still get well up into 700's with that there, as it ages some. The 30 day thing has more impact because of the other, more severe baddies, if you can somehow get goodwill going with that, it would help, too.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply.

I posted a very long post earlier today on rebuilding about Sprint. Long and short, I don't owe it but EQ won't remove and Sprint is useless. I'll definitely take your advice and post about BOA over there as well and "stalk" CreditGuyInDixie's posts.

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

Currently getting up to speed on GW letters and will give that a try. So glad I found this forum, I never realized how ignorant I was/am about the ins and outs of credit.

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@kilroy8 wrote:

Try to get the one from Sprint off of there some way, that would help a bunch. The BOA thing is just going to be with you for 7 years, but you can still get well up into 700's with that there, as it ages some. The 30 day thing has more impact because of the other, more severe baddies, if you can somehow get goodwill going with that, it would help, too.

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[Anonymous]

First, where are you getting your credit scores from?

Second, utilization here is costing you a ton.  You're currently sitting at 66% aggregate utilization with your highest utilization card being scored as maxed out.  You're probably taking a 15-20 point hit for the maxed out card, then another 15-20 or so points for your aggregate utilization crossing each of 3 threshold points at 8.9%, 28.9% and 48.9%.  My shooting from the hip guess therefore is that you're scores are being held back 60-80 points just because of less than $800 in CC debt.  Pay one card to $0 and the other to a small balance like $10 and you'll see your scores immediately go up 60-80 points.  That's HUGE and takes you from bad scores to at least decent ones.

You're receiving good advice above regarding your negative items.  I'd definitely suggest hitting the rebuilding forum and doing some homework there.