greenpotatochips

My EX fell by a dozen or so points and the Experian Boost thing for BB&T doesn't even work anymore, but at least I got this email lol.

I know what it's like to get paid once in the whole month. Since starting this current job I have where I'm a contractor, that's how it's been. Really nice too, but you have to really plan out your expenses for that month and make sure you don't blow all that money in the first week or so. It felt so nice to have a decent emergency fund again and to really have more control than ever where my money's going. It's too bad many of those clowns over there won't ever be able to get this.

I can empathize with where you're coming from, OP. I too made plenty of financial mistakes like this in my early 20s and had to learn the hard way. But I agree with others here. Your debt compared to many isn't nearly so bad, and you still have some time and room to work with your creditors to take care of it. Looking back, I would have tried to have settled more with certain lenders. Bankruptcy is more of a last resort option when you've tried everything else under the sun and are still having issues. Nothing wrong with that, but if you can get all this straightened out, clean up your reports, work on developing a rainy day fund for yourself, and hopefully be able to boost your income in the long run, you'll be fine. You might want to look into Mint or Everydollar apps if you need help establishing a budget for yourself and seeing where you're spending each month. Regardless of whatever your income is now, if you can learn how to stick to a budget now, you will save so much in the long run. If I were you, I wouldn't focus so much on how ugly the reports look like now. Just get your Cap1 stuff fixed, getting those high interest cards paid off ASAP, and adding more positive tradelines, even if it means going with some secured cards or something to help would be the main priority and working on that for the next several months, which will teach you all about utilization and how much of an effect that can have on your reports, and really teach you that paying in full is the way to go. That's going to elevate your score substantially in just a few months no matter how many derogs you have on the report now, since some of these are already several years old going by your post. Get rid of the subprime turds like First Premier and Credit Scum after you're done paying them off too. They're a blight on anyone's reports. Lastly, use this as a chance to develop even better habits with credit.

You can always call some of these lenders up too and explain what you're trying to do and how you want to work towards paying off these high balances. Sometimes they have plans you can take advantage of and other ways to make it even easier at chipping away at all these cards that you owe. Focus on the primes first like Chase and Amex so you can remain in good standing with them. For the store cards, once your utilization is lower, you might want to consolidate that debt as well given how high those APRs could be. When you're out of debt, never forget about this experience. Use it as an opportunity to use credit responsibly and to PIF as much as possible. There are debt management programs out there as well where you list all these cards you have and you get them all under one payment, but depending on who you go with, it can still be on the expensive side to have that huge monthly payment upfront.

That's interesting. What's the specific reason you want to keep your limit there low? If you're not having any issues with utilization (especially if you already PIF), I can understand. Just curious as to where you're coming from, OP.

Most of these people learn the hard way. What's the point in trying to convince them otherwise then? Pride coming before the fall.

If you use CreditCheckTotal / Experian, you just have to pay $1 for the free trial, and you'll not only get your EX FICO, but the other two bureaus as well. It's very easy to cancel before the trial is up.

If you're already in prime land, you probably won't have as much use for Synchrony at that point anyway. Don't make the mistake of going crazy adding all these new accounts like that. Which card was this? Maybe there are some better ones you can get from other lenders that might fit your needs.

If it was a much older derog, like let's say several years, the impact on your FICOs wouldn't be as bad. Which creditor was this on and how's your relationship looking like overall for them? If that's all fine and good, like hegemony says, you can send them that goodwill letter and explain what happened, especially if there was anything health related going on at the time, how you learned from the experience and that you've been making your payments on time with them and such and such. You can also talk about how this issue has affected your ability to obtain credit, a mortgage, etc.

Nothing except those annoying letters you get after a BK about car loans. Getting sick of these and threw it in the trash.

That's good to know about the AU accounts being able to come off. My mom had one of those negative ones from CapOne and she had no idea that account was even a thing, so I sent in the dispute letters today to help her out there. And Midland Funding? They were some of the worst collectors I ever had to deal with in my life and one of the biggest catalysts behind a lot of the events that happened this year. So happy you were able to get their crap off your reports. Best of luck with your credit repair.

My DCU PIN. One step closer to being able to access my account again and start getting free EQ FICO scores. 😁

I have a checking account with BB&T and have so for years. Never liked how hefty some of the fees could be, but I never had any cards with them or Suntrust. I'm right here in Atlanta.

Thanks for the great information. I've been coming up with a long-term plan for the student loans and seeing if then, I could also get a lower interest rate on them. I have no problem with setting aside part of my budget to make regular monthly payments on them to chip at them away ASAP. It's part of the reason why I'm not interested at this point in getting an auto loan or any other installment loans for the near future. I also was briefly in an online grad school and tried a second bachelors degree program earlier this year, but realized back then that I was better off sticking to the bachelors degree I already have. It's a CIS/MIS degree, but honestly, I had to teach myself other skills, but maybe there will be some more use for it in the future too. Overall, my debt isn't too bad there because I went to inexpensive state schools and an online school as well briefly. I've also heard a lot about these coding bootcamps. They sounded great on paper, but even the ones that have that income share agreement, it's still going to be another loan even in itself, and I was also turned off from that because I already have some good skillsets under my belt in being able to work from home, etc. We'll see what happens long-term. Interesting point about store cards too. I've been trying to avoid as many traps as I can, not having First Premier or Credit One or any of that crap on my reports, but if that's gonna have the same effect, then yeah, great to know too. I mainly got these hoping for some nice additional SLs, but then when two of them turned out to be these ehhhh toy limits, I was like yeah, they're getting nuked if they don't do anything. So glad that I have this board as a resource whenever I do something and I'm not so sure about it. Trust me. I didn't have nearly this much support years ago over 6 years ago when I started to build credit, and advice like this helps me save so much time, energy, and grief long-term.

My first statement from Self / Self Lender. Already set up autopay well before so nothing to worry about. 😂 Turns out I had an Overstock account before with old login information, exact same limit too so was able to login from the Comenity site and get up in so they sent me an email about it. Kay Jewelers also sent me an email. $3k limit right out of the gate, so yeah, if those others from Comenity (two actual approvals) I got don't do jack to grow long term, they're out as soon as I get even better cards. Achieved my goal here to add another decent limit tradelines for rebuilding purposes so on future approvals with say CapOne, the SLs should be much better with time. Highest is $5k right now, this line for $3k, my oldest open one for $1.8k, and this other revolving line for $2k. FedLoan servicing sent me an updated status on my student loans and how they're in forebearance for another month. This was a few weeks after BK 7 discharge. At least those accounts are old enough. Wonder if positive history on em stays on report for even longer than revolving lines of credit?