Hello. I haven't been active at all on this board since late last year. In the meantime I finally closed on my house, in January at 6% fixed. I was able to unsecure my credit union MasterCard in February, and they just raised my limit by $300. Also Target raised my store limit to $500 after about three or four months of use. All said, I think I have done pretty well with my credit, though I am still not happy with it. I went from low/mid 500's and many many derogs to mid/high 600's and very few derogs. The things I still can't shake are one 60 day late on a student loan with TU (but it's almost two years old), my dismissed Chapter 13 BK, and Experian never did come near as clean as the other two. I think my biggest barrier was that I didn't start rebuilding my credit until May of last year, even though the bankruptcy was in 1998. I was able to get an overdraft line of credit and a $500 secure card through my credit union in May 2002. In July 2002 I got a $200 Target card, which I actually use monthly. In September 2002 I got a second LOC account when I added a new checking account. Closed on a $63k loan in January 2003. Unsecured the $500 CC in February 2003. Got a limit increase on the CC of $300 in July 2003. Does anyone here have suggestions on what to do next? I had basically lost interest after I knew I would get the home loan, late in 2002. Now I just want to keep on top of things, and of course there is the allure of more cards and higher limits. I certainly want the best options when the time comes to buy another home. In addition to my own CC, I am AU on a few cards of my mother, most of which only report to TU. I also am AU on a $1k limit Discover card of my brother which I have full control over. I make almost all of my purchases with the CU MasterCard, my brother's Discover, or the Target guest card, but pay the balance in full each month. I was thinking to get a Target VISA, since they ask if I want to upgrade with almost every purchase. Can you have a guest card AND a VISA if you do the upgrade, or should I apply separately? My EQ report is cleanest, followed closely by TU, and much farther by EXP. The TU report would be better, but I still have many inquiries from early last year. Of course, all of them have the inquireis from home loan hunting, but I finally figured out how bad that was by about July of 2002. The EQ report service puts my score at 673, though it was 676 before one balance went up a bit, just to give you an idea. What options do I have? Has anyone made inroads on getting a dismissed chapter 13 off their report? (Especially one that was dismissed before the plan was even approved!) Has anyone been able to get Experian to properly re-investigate items they have previously 'verified'? What creditors should I look at to expand my credit most economically, ie. most credit per inquiry? Thanks in advance. I'll try to take a bit of time to read these boards weekly, though I have less chance now than in the past. It's not quite right for me to have gotten so much help and then to have gone away once my problem was mostly solved. And let me say a big thank you to all the people who posted good advice for me to follow. -josh
