Should I Appy For CC?

[nioka]

I am about a month after my 341 and have about another month to go for my discharge. All has been quiet and I constantly get loan and CC offers on the internet. Today I got a CC offer in the mail from my bank with no annual fee and a reasonable interest rate. The bank manager at the branch I deal with is aware of my bk situation. Before I apply for this card I thought about running my situation by her first. I am also concerned about not having my discharge in hand before applying for credit.
Should I apply or should I wait for my discharge?

[justbroke]

You could wait for discharge, but I don't think that is going to affect the bank's decision that much. A very recent bankruptcy is typically not a good thing for any bank.

The question I have is whether that is just a regular "offer" (e.g. invitation to apply), or is it a qualified offer (e.g. pre-approved or pre-selected).

[nioka]

Justbroke,

I get other offers, mainly internet offers to apply, but this is the second one that came in the mail from my bank. BTW, I did not have any CC's or loans with this bank.
I just read the fine print and it does say, "invited to apply."
I will need to start somewhere and I thought I would take this offer to my bank and explain my situation to the bank manager and go with what she says.

[justbroke]

Some bank managers can override credit decisions and get you a card. Worse case, if you are not offered an unsecured card, perhaps you can start with a secured card that will graduate to an unsecured card after a year or two of good history.

[AngelinaCat]

Why not learn to live on 'cash only'?

There will be times that you may need a CC, but it likely won't happen before two years or more has passed. You are getting all kinds of cc offers--you are on a mailing list. Just because you get offers, does not mean you will be accepted and approved once you fill out the form.

[Drazil65]

Why not learn to live on 'cash only'?

There will be times that you may need a CC, but it likely won't happen before two years or more has passed. You are getting all kinds of cc offers--you are on a mailing list. Just because you get offers, does not mean you will be accepted and approved once you fill out the form.

AMEN to that!!!!!!!

[PhillyGuy]

I make a good dime and I waited over a year to apply for my first CC after my BK7. Learn to live on cash...

[Pjmax]

I don't see any benefit to applying for a CC before discharge. Your scores are most likely at their lowest, and even if you were to get approved now, it would be at a significantly lower limit than if you wait a few months. You will be getting lots of offers. 99.9% of them should be ignored.

[nioka]

Thanks for all the good advice. My purpose of applying for a CC is to rebuild my credit rating and not to go on a spending spree. The reason for my bk was not CC's but an upside down mortgage and an over zealous HOA.
I have learned to use my debit card in place of a CC and have yet to find any problems using the debit card.

Since I filed bk I have gotten at least twenty offers for car loans up to $30k. Some of the offers even had decent interest rates.
CC offers I got were mainly on the web and I ignore those. I have recieved mail offers from two banks the one being the bank I currently use and did not have any loss with my bk.

The basis for my question was to find out if it were practical to apply for a CC now or wait until after my discharge.

I also have a second question. I haven't checked but think all the CC accounts that I declared are now closed. However, I have accounts with Kohls and JC Penny that were not included in my bankruptcy and have a "0" balance for some time. I opened these accounts to get the initial discounts offered by opening the accounts and seldom used them. I am thinkgin about using these account to help reestablished by credit. Comment appreciated, thanks.

[Pjmax]

After your discharge, get copies of all 3 credit reports, and make sure everything is reporting correctly. It takes a few weeks post-discharge for all your accounts to catch up with your credit reports. You'll find out then if those 2 accounts stayed open orr not. Just because you didn't list them doesn't mean they won't close them.

[PhillyGuy]

I also have a second question. I haven't checked but think all the CC accounts that I declared are now closed. However, I have accounts with Kohls and JC Penny that were not included in my bankruptcy and have a "0" balance for some time. I opened these accounts to get the initial discounts offered by opening the accounts and seldom used them. I am thinkgin about using these account to help reestablished by credit. Comment appreciated, thanks.

I had a Macy's store card survive my BK, go ahead and use them and make the payments, it will help down the road.

[sbatman]

I believe that having a major credit card(s)with enough available credit to cover an emergency trip-airfare, hotel and car rental is of paramount importance.

My sister died on the day I filed my bankruptcy. She was on the East coast. I was in Phoenix. In Arizona bankruptcy law, I was only allowed to have $150 in cash. Even using the cheapest car rental car I could get and sharing hotel room expense with another sister and niece, it was a pretty penny. The hotel had to be safe for two women and a preteen, so we really couldn't save too much money there. Oh, and we had to eat, we really couldn't avoid that.

I was lucky that my partner covered all that, including meals. Otherwise, I would have missed my own sister's funeral. As bad as that was, think how much more awful it could be if it was your child's or parent's death or serious, life threatening emergency. Are you lucky enough to have family or friends who may have to shell out thousands for such horrible events? And what about your missed work if you don't have the luxury of paid time off?

So, get a credit card or cards with adequate limits for above catastrophes and keep them for emergencies only. Just charging your monthly Netflix, HuluPlus, et cetera, and paying them of each month is all you need.