I better start rebuilding credit

[Carmella]

My husband and I have put off rebuilding credit. It just wasn't a priority at this point.

I found out my Transunion score was 650 and his is 610. The difference is that I have a credit card and he does not. We both are on the car loans and on the HELOC. I also have what I think is an installment loan to pay for brakes on my car it was through Sunbit and is almost paid off.

We had to buy another car as my husband was in a car accident about 3 weeks ago and his car was totaled. He is ok, no one in either vehicle was injured. Long story, but he wanted another compact car and a new one. These are hard to find at least in our area and I wasn't crazy about the dealership. I don't think we got the best deal, but since we wanted something so specific and there ain't many...

I want to buy another car for myself I do need to rebuild credit and save up for down payment, husband's accident is going to delay my decision. My main reason to get another car is because after my car was totaled and we were still in BK and it was pandemic I was really limited in options and I really need AWD in the winter. But now I am upside down in that loan as well.

I guess getting serious about the credit score would be a step in the right direction. This car loan has higher interest than husband's former car and I don't think the dealership did enough or cared enough to get a better rate. I think it's 9.9%

[Barbisi]

Carmella, I'm so sorry to read about another accident but relieved your hubby -and the occupants of the other car- are all alright.
I know exactly how you feel about a not-so-great selection of cars to choose from.
When Zombie and I had to make our choices in Puyallup in 2022, we were lucky to get the two autos we managed to find -the 2019 CUV Mazda for him and the 2020 compact Toyota for me. Luckily, we made it through BK13 and out the other side just barely, but having enough home proceeds to buy one vehicle outright and only finance a third of the second one's cost saved our a$#%, quite literally!
Have you applied to Capital One yet? This was our first card after Zombie paid for our secured CC with more house proceed funds so we could leave Colorado with our then 3 cats in a rented large van. (We now have four !!!)
As shipo and justbroke have recommended, we then got PenFed and later an unsecured CC from the very Colorado CU in which we put the money upfront so we could relocate the way we needed to.
I think if you can (and I believe you should be able to) receive a CC from Capital One, then hopefully you can raise your FICO score soon. And of course, refi that second car as soon as possible. (We have not refinanced my car yet and it's about 8%. That is definitely something on our to do list.)
Good luck on the rebuilding path!

[shipo]

My husband and I have put off rebuilding credit. It just wasn't a priority at this point.

I found out my Transunion score was 650 and his is 610. The difference is that I have a credit card and he does not. We both are on the car loans and on the HELOC. I also have what I think is an installment loan to pay for brakes on my car it was through Sunbit and is almost paid off.

We had to buy another car as my husband was in a car accident about 3 weeks ago and his car was totaled. He is ok, no one in either vehicle was injured. Long story, but he wanted another compact car and a new one. These are hard to find at least in our area and I wasn't crazy about the dealership. I don't think we got the best deal, but since we wanted something so specific and there ain't many...

I want to buy another car for myself I do need to rebuild credit and save up for down payment, husband's accident is going to delay my decision. My main reason to get another car is because after my car was totaled and we were still in BK and it was pandemic I was really limited in options and I really need AWD in the winter. But now I am upside down in that loan as well.

I guess getting serious about the credit score would be a step in the right direction. This car loan has higher interest than husband's former car and I don't think the dealership did enough or cared enough to get a better rate. I think it's 9.9%

Here are my responses, not necessarily in order of how you asked the questions:

• Your Sunbit installment loan may be listed as a Consumer Finance Agreement (CFA) which often hurts one's credit. I'd get that sucker paid off as soon as possible.
• Glad nobody was injured in the accident and glad your husband was able to find a new car which fit his needs; yeah, 9.9% is high(ish), I see PenFed is offering rates as low as 5.44% to refinance 2023 or newer vehicles with less than 7,501 miles on the clock, and NFCU has rates even lower if you are eligible to join.
• Speaking of both rebuilding credit and auto financing (both for you and him), it might be time to join a credit union, refinance his car, finance a new car for yourself (how far under water are you?) and apply for a credit cards, one for each of you.
• Given you both have car loans, from a credit scoring perspective the "installment" loan score bonus is covered, now all you need to do is to obtain a total of three cards for each of you and then let one report a small balance every month to obtain additional score bonuses. Just to be clear, by this I mean a six cards and two reporting a small balance.
• If I recall correctly, y'all are in Ohio, Fifth Third Bank has some fairly nice credit cards so they might be an option for additional credit cards.
• Finally, has your Chapter 13 fallen off your credit reports yet (typically 7-years after you filed)? If not, expect a very nice score bump when it does; of the (then) 28 FICO scores the three bureaus publish, my average score pop was just over 100 points, and if I recall correctly, one of them was nearly 150 points.
• Where do y'all do your banking currently? Do they have credit card options?

[Carmella]

Both of our names are on both car loans.

Does using Klarna or Afterpay hurt the credit score?

My credit card is from Ally which previously was Ollo. I have been using it and have a balance on it that is about 12% of the available credit. It would be lower if we didn't have dump money into the down payment for husband's car.

We get several credit card offers in the mail including Capital One.

BK should fall off in April or May 2025, I think we filed in 2018, but didn't look it up.

So maybe we are not too bad. There is a credit union nearby we could join. That sounds like a great idea especially for me getting a new car and if we would refinance his.

I don't have my pay off balance for my car. I don't know if the "principal" amount that shows on my payment is the actual pay off amount. If it is my loan is very close or just under the amount the dealerships advertise to sell this model. Trade in value would be then be less. I haven't actually asked what they would give me for it.

We deal with two banks. One of the banks is very old school and primarily in Ohio, they have branched out to FLA where lots of older Ohio folks move especially in the winter. My dad never liked them since they made their profit during the depression off the people who lost their homes. But they are a very stable bank and I think they are very good if you have a mortgage. We don't have a mortgage anymore, but we have the HELOC that we are paying off at that bank. The other bank is USBank and we had two credit cards with them prior to BK13. I haven't tried to get a credit card with them and they do not solicit us with offers.

We do have Fifth Third Bank very close to our home, but we do not have an account there.

The only credit debt we have is the HELOC through our bank, Ally credit card, Two car loans (CPS, Capital One) and I have a few payments on Klarna or After Pay. I take the easy way out when buying online and use those services because it's easier than knowing a credit card number! But if we had other credit cards we could use a credit card instead. Sunbit has the last payment in July.

[Zombie13]

Carmella - I am sorry to hear about your husband's accident! But also relieved that he and the others are not injured.