WHAT SHOULD I DO????

[DollyLama]

Congrats on your new journey in life abroad! 

Since 3 years are quite lengthy, are any of the cards you have able to be used abroad? Not sure if you only have store retail cards in the States and no stores available over there? 

I totally agree 100% on the shared secured loan, where you take a minimum amount $500, but with a bank like Alliant, that will set you up on a 60 month plan. You in return, pay if down to around $40, however they will set your next due date like 3-4 yrs in the future. The loan will still be reporting each and every month at optimal utilization, building the credit and taking place of your soon to be paid off car loan. 

If you do not have any BANK cards, yes open a Discover, and continually use it each month. FICO will penalize you for having 0 balances reported with all bank and retail/store cards. You have to prove usage, payment history over time. If any of your other cards can be used, switch off and make a small purchase. If you don't after 3 years, they most likely will close your accounts for non usage. Just keep the utilization low. 

Hopefully your Discover will graduate to unsecured, establish a credit line after a 1 year with higher line of credit, and by the time you are back to the States, will be doing pretty well. 

The Santander will most likely still be there, it would not hurt to obtain emails of the higher ups, and do the goodwill saturation technique and plead for deletion of the derog payment, surely within 3 years time of once a month letters, each time consistently worded a bit different, I really am trying to rectify my credit, this is the only negative and I'm truly sorry for that time period due to __________ blah, blah circumstances. 

Good luck in your new position and enjoy the time! 

[cgeefly]

Thank you so much for the response!

I have a Discover with a 1k limit. Do you think I should consider a Discover secured as well with perhaps 1k or 2k on it?

I will be back in the US from time to time, so I will still manage to use the store cards, but it will be sporadically.

do you have a link on Alliant? I have never heard of them.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

[CreditInspired]

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@cgeefly wrote:

Thank you so much for the response!

I have a Discover with a 1k limit. Do you think I should consider a Discover secured as well with perhaps 1k or 2k on it?

I will be back in the US from time to time, so I will still manage to use the store cards, but it will be sporadically.

do you have a link on Alliant? I have never heard of them.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

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Since you have a Discover unsecured card, a secured Discover doesn’t make sense. It’s going backwards. Just use your card—a lot, PIF, and ask for SP CLIs. 

[DollyLama]

I agree with above, if it is unsecured, and you have a 6 mo history with Discover, log on and request credit line increase. Keeping that low utilization with usage, ask every 4-6 months. It is no hard inquiry against your account and no other creditor can see it either. If denied, try again in 3 months. 

Here is a link to doing the shared secured loan, Alliant was the preferred choice, since they didn't pull a hard inquiry on your files. But it's a good update. The trick is finding a bank that will lend preferably a small loan amount over a 60 month term ideally, BUT they will take large payment (paying it under 8.9% of loan amount) and will push your due date years in the future. Many do not- this is what you want to avoid. 

Very good that you will return periodically to use the store cards so they will not be closed for inactivity. 

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Personal-Finance/The-Quest-for-an-SSL-alternative-to-Alliant/td-p/5...

[cgeefly]

Thank you so very much.

I will reserach and take care of this right away and advise!

[cgeefly]

Dollylama:

What do you think about dropping 1k or 2k in PenFed or NFCU?

I can potentially then, ask them for these beautiful SCL-that I see on the forum....

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

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@cgeefly wrote:

Dollylama:

What do you think about dropping 1k or 2k in PenFed or NFCU?

I can potentially then, ask them for these beautiful SCL-that I see on the forum....

Thoughts?

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I don’t know about PenFed because I won’t do business with them but NFCU separates lending decisions from your deposit accounts entirely so putting money in won’t help you with them. NFCU is purely DTI and profile and sometimes it seems like DTI is more important than profile. 

[cgeefly]

I am sorry..what does DTI represent--

I am a newbie

[Anonymous]

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@cgeefly wrote:

I am sorry..what does DTI represent--

I am a newbie

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DTI is debt to income ratio. You take your rent/mortgage and your minimum payments for your credit accounts and other obligations like child support, add them up and divide by your gross income. 

Here, Wells Fargo actually has a decent calculator for it. 

https://www.wellsfargo.com/goals-credit/smarter-credit/credit-101/debt-to-income-ratio/

[CreditInspired]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@cgeefly wrote:

I am sorry..what does DTI represent--

I am a newbie

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DTI is debt to income ratio. You take your rent/mortgage and your minimum payments for your credit accounts and other obligations like child support, add them up and divide by your gross income. 

Here, Wells Fargo actually has a decent calculator for it. 

https://www.wellsfargo.com/goals-credit/smarter-credit/credit-101/debt-to-income-ratio/

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Thanks @saeren. This is great.