6 months ago, I had no credit. Not good, not bad... couple hospital bill dings from when I was young. I used retail store cards irresponsibly at 18 so I've exclusively used my debit (bank) card for probably 7-8 years. I couldn't "trust" myself to have one. If I needed to make a purchase, I either had the money or I didn't. If there was a family emergency, we used my husband's credit card. I refused to let him tell me how much we had in savings. Not exactly the healthiest relationship with money, right?
My job gave me some stock (RSU) as part of my benefits package, so at the beginning of this year I signed up for Mint and Credit Karma. I wanted an easy way to track this new 401k and stock plan... I suddenly had extra (but untouchable) money that at the very least was all mine and I should be aware of and keep an eye on. You all had beat it into my head that I had to take advantage of employee matching.
Aside from this cool new retirement money, I didn't really like what I saw. I figured as an adult, and half of a married couple who are starting to look at purchasing a home, I needed to get a handle on my credit. I applied for a couple starter/student cards and got promptly rejected. Well shit, this sucks. After a bit of Googling it looks like a secured card was all I could get. I plopped down $200 of my own money and was forced to be patient.
Guys, it was so hard. I checked my credit every week like I was looking for the high score on a video game. I obsessively paid off small increments of my card to always be below 30% utilization which was... a whopping $60. Let the statement get billed to me, immediately pay it off, 0 interest gets charged, score creeps up a few points. Lather rinse repeat. One month I was at about 32% utilization and my score dropped a couple points which was so crushing. I felt like I was starting over.
Today was my sixth statement. I had heard with this particular secured card that after half a year of good faith usage, you could get bumped up to a "real" credit line. I figured I would have to call the company, maybe argue my case and discuss my score. I was absolutely shocked when I logged into my statement today to see that it had automatically increased to $500!
I am bouncing up and down at my desk right now with the stupidest grin on my face. If an emergency comes up, I could potentially handle it myself without running to my husband holding the purse strings. Of course we're a team that shares finances, but I'm actually a self-sustaining adult now, contributing to this partnership! We're going on vacation in a couple months and I won't have to be watching the calendar like a hawk for when that payday will hit my checking account. I can just enjoy myself and pay it off when we come home.
I am just so, so relieved. I texted my mom at 10PM. With some patience and awareness, you can really dig your score up guys. I think it might be time to apply for a second line somewhere. I'm not sure, I have to do some research, but another account should up my score hopefully! Unfortunately I just have all those pulls from early this year, getting rejected before I accepted that I was stuck with a secured card.
Anyway... I did it, so you can too! Keep on keeping on, PF!
TL;DR: 6 months of obsessively checking my secured card led to a "real" credit line for the first time in my adult life.
Submitted July 21, 2017 at 11:16PM by deviouskat89 http://ift.tt/2vua1ue
