Starting over

Wow, I just read over the previous posts... It's been a while! I closed all the credit cards about 2 years ago and have been living without credit all this time, just living using cash rather than credit. We're thinking about buying a house some time so we will need to have some kind of credit established to be able to get a mortgage loan so I decided to start building my credit again.

It's been four years since my bankruptcy. I heard that you can get a mortgage loan as early as 2 years after so in about another year it'll be five years since mine so I think we'll have no problem getting a loan. In the mean time I need to build up my credit score so we don't get ripped off on the interest rate.

The credit card offers keep coming but they all have an anual fee. I must say it is better that they were offering before... No other fees except the $49 anual fee. The interest got better too, 0% for 12 months.

I took the offer and they gave me $1000 credit. That's really good cause we need to buy some beds for the kids. This'll be perfect.

Interesting thing is my wifey applied for Macy's credit card to save 20% on a purchase and they approved it no problem. So this must mean that our credit must be getting better.

I will run our credit report in about 6 months to see where we stand. I haven't seen it in about 2 years.

Ok, until next time.

~ Valik

Another Credit Card and Limit Raised On The First

Junk mail is irritating but once in a while I get an offer that I can use. This one was an ok offer, $200 in fees of course but what can you expect? I look at it as buying my credibility back. I pay them $200 and in turn I get a $400 credit card that I can use to build my credit. So this time I got me a MasterCard with $400 credit limit.

I also called my first card's bank and asked to raise the limit since it's been over 6 months from when I got it. They reised it another $100 but for a fee. It cost me $10.

Slowly it's growing.

My credit must be getting better

In May I wanted to see if I could get another credit card to expand my credit growth. I applied for a Circuit City Credit card. At first, when I applied online, they told me that they can't approve it now but they will contact me for some confirmations, blah blah blah. I thought, "what ever, they're not going to give it to me". Two days later I get a call from Circuit City credit department, they confirmed my address and my business name and told me I now have been accepted and gave me $1000 credit with Circuit City.

Awesome!! So now I have $1300 available credit that I can work with. The plan is just as it was before, have about 1/3 of the credit used and make payments on it. This should get my credit score up.

Change of Plans

I ended up moving to a different job before it hit May and moving back to Spokane. The new job didn't work out and I decided to try my hand at self employment again. This time I am going to try web design and internet marketing. I actually have a few clients and all the stuff I need to get this business off the ground. I built a website for the internet marketing business and did some marketing. So far it seems I have enough business to last for a few months. I also started a supplemental blog that logs my web design ideas.

Now if I want to buy a house I'll probably have to wait 2 years before they'll give me a mortgage loan, being self employed. We'll see how it all plays out.

Mortgage in my future

I desided to see what I can get for a mortgage loan. Going around begging for a loan is not something I wanted to do or had time for, so I thought, "How can I do this?". After searching around on Google for mortgages after bankruptcy I stubbled upon LandingTree. They let the mortgage companies compete, so I don't have to beg. I put my info on the table and let them beg me to choose them. Sound like something I was looking for.

I signed up and filled in all my info, stated my situation and submitted it. By the end of the day I had three mortgage companies contact me and one really took on my case. He ran my info through their programs and worked hard to get me an exception on my bankruptcy. A couple of days later he called me with good news and bad news.

The good news is that he was able to get me an exception because my previous credit status was good and this was just this one situation in which I was unable to avoid bankruptcy.

The bad news is that they decided to give me a full year after the bankruptcy discharge before giving me a mortgage loan.

So next May I'll be getting a mortgage loan! This is awesome!

Starting Fresh After Bankruptcy

I ordered a full credit report in September from all tree of the credit bureaus to see what my credit looked like and to my surprise, most of the accounts were already marked Bankruptcy Discharge. I was told it could take up to 6 months to a year. Only a couple still had overdue balances.

Tried to apply for a credit card to see if I could get one at that point but no, got refused. Well, was worth a try.

Three months went by, now we're in November. I've been receiving lots of those credit card offers in the mail that say, "You're pre-approved!" so I went ahead and let them try and approve me this time. Wow, they approved!

I got my first credit card with $300 credit. It has a $59 annual fee and is 9.9% interest. Awesome! I finally get to start building my credit back up.

From all the research I've been doing about building up credit I learned that to grow or improve credit, well one of the things is to keep the debt to available credit ratio low. So my plan is to first pay off the annual fee and any other fees they may charge to the $300 credit. Then I will make small purchases, probably around $30 to $50 per month and pay them off each month when I get the bill. This should push my credit history towards the top. It will probably take me a while at that rate to get my credit increased but I am excited about getting this chance. My second chance!

It's Official, All Debt Has Been Discharged! - Part 6

Finally, yesterday, I got the letter from the bankruptcy Court confirming the discharge of all my debt. My lawyer attached a note to the letter where she tells me to keep this letter with the petition papers for the next 10 years.

I guess this is going to be my fresh start. Well, actually it's not that fresh, smells like crappy credit to me, but at least the debt is gone. Ok, it's not "at least" I am overwelmingly grateful for this country and the laws it has. For allowing me to reach for my dream and allowing me to make mistakes and learn through them. Thank you my USA!

So what's next?

In about a month or two I will get my credit report for all 3 credit agencies. I will need to check to make sure that all the credit companies have updated my credit report with the bankruptcy. Will need to make sure that all the acounts are closed.

The credit companies that have not updated my credit history will need to be contacted and begged, bribed and nagged until they do.

Once that is all done and my credit is squeeky clean (with one ginormous exception; bankruptcy) I can start rebuilding my credit. I can't wait untill then. For some reason I've been having this urge to become a homeowner. I can't wait till I can buy a home. I can almost taste it.

Anyway, I will update once I check my credit in a few months. Thanks for reading. Leave some feedback for me, I want to know if anyone's reading this.