Best way to pay off credit cards and increase credit score

Well fireyone,

I just cleaned off my desk, you know the one where you sort the junk from the bills, well my stack is now cleaned up and I have a pretty good picture of where I stand. A little happiness and a little disapointment came out of that mess.

One good point is that I am current on my bills, yeah! I did find some disputes that I filed on my credit report, here is the dissapointment, some of the junk is going to stay on there till April 2011, YUCK, that is still along time. I thought they were much older. They are all paid off, but still linger to haunt me.

So I guess, I have a long time to keep current and establish good payment history till 2011, so once those drop off and I have all these years of good payment history, my score should soar right?

Hopefully that is what will happen but I imagine you will have to establish a good history somewhere along the line. I know at this point it is hard to get any decent rates on a cc but maybe through time. As the debts get older, evn though they are still on you CR will your score rise?

your hard work will pay off in the long run goodnatured, just hang in there and continue to do what you have been doing, you will have good results once things start dropping off your report.

I sure hope so, it has been a long time coming and still have time to go.

soon but not soon enough huh? Is there anyway you can get some of the bad credit pulled off your report. CMBV seems to have some good advice on here about that, you may want to look further into it.

That is an idea. It would take a little time to look into but you have already put fourth so much effort.

I can't wait to have some of this junk fall off, I have not done anything with new credit, just been maintaining what I have.

That is probaly best for a while anyway. If your score is too low and sometimes even medium all you get is high interest anyway

That's what I have found, I have applied for cards there for a while, usually just got a denial or an offer with a really high rate, then those inquiries just lower my score that I was trying to raise. So I have decided that I will just maintain.

This will be ok for a while but you will probaly find yourself in the shoes I was once in. You will have to bite the bullet at soem point and get one of those higher rate cards and only use it sparingly. What I would do is charge something little and pay half one month and half the next. My ex boss use mto do credit for the banks and directed me on how to do this. I also did it with my hubbys name (fashion Bug too). If you pay off your purchases within the first month it does nothing for your credit.
She was the first one to actually help rebuild my crdit by taking her advice. Now I actually got an account through Dell with really decent interest. I don't use it just make my monthly payments plus a little more for a few christmas purchases I had to make. I was planning on paying it off but more important things came up first.

I read their terms and conditions, I will not qualify for a card from fashion bug until I get some stuff caught up.

If you have any delinquent or past due accounts they will not give you a card, they are pretty strict with their guidelines on who they give credit to, I had their card at one time and paid it off. It came in useful on their family night, I got some really good deals.

ERB.. I didn't have good credit at all when I got my FB card. I had two seriously high collection amounts on my report from cap one and providian, two doc bills, fingerhut and a hospitol bill. It was only like a $300 card and I only used it for bargains but I now have it over $2500 credit lim it. I don't charge much but leave some on to get the benefits of the account being open.

Okay fireyone, I just applied online, we will see what they think, how long does it take them to get back to you? It says 8-10 days, do you usually know before that or is that pretty much normal? I will be really surprised if I get it. I could use it though now that my kid is in school, they have some cool little clothes.

Not sure I applied in the store. they turned me down once and then the next time I got it. Good luck.

I thought what is it going to hurt, hopefully they will give me it, it will be a start to credit repair also.

If not wait a couple months and try again. I use to take apps at the store by computer and I seen people try up to three times. They were usually approved by the third even with bad credit (you hear life stories at a cash reg.) I hear that they only allot so many a month and when the quota is down they except "risks".

Each time you apply for the card, a hard inquiry may be conducted by the credit card company which lowers your credit score. So you must give a gap of at least 3 months while applying again for the card. More and more hard inquiries imply that you are credit hungry which gives negative effect to your report and hence your credit score.

This is true. I was always told to leave some time in between applying for different credit cards.

both are equal. If you have a history of paying in full on time for your purchases, or if you pay monthly on time within several months, the
result is the same-it shows your responsible to your obligations. however, to increase your fico paying balance in several months is better-you have a longer track record to show you pay on time

Great detail in your answer lexusstier, you are definately right, paying on time will raise your score.

That probaly is one of the songle moast important things with credit cards..timel.y payments.

so how long should I wait to know fireyone, will they send a letter or something, I haven't heard a yes or no yet.

Usually if you get approved it will tell you right off..not all the time but most. It usually only takes a couple weeks to get something in the mail. We use to get a message up on our screen at work that would say "notify by mail"...we would tell the customer that. When they came back in again they usually told us they were turned down or only got like a small (300) credit limit.

Well fireyone, I got it, I have a two hundred dollar limit, they also sent a 10% off coupon to encourage shopping I guess. I may get the kid some clothes. I am not into clothing shopping at all. I was just thrilled to get the card to start getting something positive on my credit report, that will be nice for a change.

They have pretty much discontinued the kids line around here because of the sales. They weren't too good. So you may be finding yourself looking for a few work outfits. I will keep you updated when Friends and family sells come about.

Yeah, that would be great, do they run the same in all stores?

They use to but now they are making people bring the actual invitation to the store where the employee gave it to them. The next sell should be at the end of Oct. but sometimes they have them moer often. If I find out about one I will get you an invite. They are usually on Sundays 5-8 pm. This will help you build good credit plus give you sell advantages..

Well thank you I appreciate it, hopefully will save some money. Let me know.

I will. I think they are really on the pricey side unless you hit the sales or an employee sell. The quality is certainly better though. I find I am giving away the clothes a few years later rather than putting them in the burn barrell. I hate when I buy something clothing wise from wal mart. It lasts only a few washings.

I think that this is good choice.

I was just on the web page, they had some really nice pants for work for around $17, do they have these prices in the stores?

I think with any store if you keep your eye open for the sales you will save a lot of money.

I always shop the back of the store. I have my dsughter doing that also. When I was working at Fashion Bug this was a big thing. They relize what most customer do and started spreading the discount racks through out the store so that you couldn't help jumping over to another full price rack.

I seen that when I was in there, hard to shop that way??? and they don't have buggies, so I had two pairs of shoes I had to carry around with me the whole time I shopped.

GN you can ask them to put the stuff abck at the register and they will. They are actually supposed to ask you so you are free to shop (and load up your arms more). In these shops they have non buggies. I had suggeted baskets but they said it is better to put the stuff back at the register for a couple reasons one is it deters shop lifting and two.. they can see what you are interested in and maybe suggest something to go with it. Guess that is how these high end stores work.
I really liked my job there...they are still some of my best freinds.

I think it is so you lose track of where you are with your shopping, I mean those piles have to get pretty big right?

yep..pretty much. Just another way credit cards have of biting you in the behind.

al

You want to pay down the balance gradually. You do not want to pay it off in full. You want to show the scoring module that you're a resposible consumer in paying back debt. Technically you want your balances at 30% of the credit limit to show good debt to credit ratios.

I used this to increase my credit scores pretty quick
www.AttractiveCreditSecrets.com

great advice there creditpro, if you have no balance hanging then you will not have a payment history to establish either.

So we probaly just blew it (even though credit is good) when we paid off Lowes in one lump sum. We had been making regular monthly payments for about a year and when we went to get the bank to take over the amount we just had the check made out to Lowes. I thought about doing it a different way and dividing it between the months but with winter and Christmas around the corner I was afraid it would be too tepting to put it in the wrong place.

You probably made a wise decision if you think you would have spent it on other things instead of paying off lowes, at least you got it done.

Yes thats what I believe too especially as tight as things are at this point. They wise thing always isn't the best thing in these cases.

true, but at least you have one out of the way

Yes and a couple more to go. I do not really consider it out of the way because it is a bank loan and we make monthly payments on it. Even though the payment id under $200 it still can add some hard times when the paycheck runs lwser due to Holidays and other things. I would just like to have them all gone and wow that woudl really save me each month. It didn't get tight until all these prices went throught the roof.

Take it that you just wanted to vote. I welcomed you aboard on another post. Hope you see it and sick around the community. Always nice to have a fresh view.

I agree always good to see new people and have a fresh point of view on things, seems we run in circles sometimes.

If I were ot runnung in circles I wouldn't know what to do. Did you find that post I told you about where the guy really needed the help on a summons answer here in PA? I was hoping you could guide him through the process.

just a guess