One Year Left - Any Suggestions on What to Do

[arlington]

Hello. We have one year left on our bk 13 plan as of October. I just ran our credit reports and ordered our scores....626/636....of course below average. Any suggestions on what we need to do in this final year to get our scores back on track? Thanks!

[lrprn]

First thing to do is to get printouts of all three credit reports (you can get them for free once a year through the Federal Trade Commission's www.AnnualCreditReport.com - don't fall for the fake credit report websites that scream "free" but eventually ask you to cough up cash for what you can get for free).

Go through those printouts line by line looking for inaccuracies. Challenge the credit agencies to correct those. If the credit agency won't correct, then challenge the creditor to correct. You have to allow 30 day cycles to see if the changes are made. Be prepared for the changes to "unstick" later and reappear - you have to be vigilant and keep checking every few months.

Keep in mind that the only real way to raise your credit scores is making all payments being reported to the credit agencies on time every time over time.

[arlington]

Thanks lrprn. I have ordered all three reports for myself and hubby. Is there any type of wording or verbage that I should look out for that shouldn't be on there? For the accounts that were included in the plan - should they say something specifically?

[arlington]

Hey Lrprn. I see that you were recently discharged. How does it feel? Any plans other than a huge sigh of relief? Was there anything that you had to hold of on that you needed during your five years that you can now focus on? Hope i'm not being too nosey....just wondering how "life after" is once you are discharged. 12 months to go....well 12.5....

[lrprn]

I highly recommend taking a look at our Rebuilding Credit forum area, including the stickies. There's tons of great information about how to look at your credit reports, what you should see on each line item, what shouldn't be there, and how to fix what's incorrect. Good luck!

[lrprn]

Hey Lrprn. I see that you were recently discharged. How does it feel? Any plans other than a huge sigh of relief?

Right now for my husband and myself it's a combination of incredible relief mixed with great happiness that we can finally move forward with all the great lessons we learned from making it through one of the toughest times of our lives successfully.

Was there anything that you had to hold off on that you needed during your five years that you can now focus on?

For five years we repaired only what was absolutely necessary around our home. Now that we're discharged, we've started planning some long-delayed repairs and remodeling inside and outside the house. Also we were very lucky to make it through our five-year 13 with our original two cars (2000 and 2002 models). The 2000 car is still doing ok, but hubby is very tired of driving a manual transmission and rolling windows up and down with crank handles . We're now cleaning up our credit reports and getting ready to go "new to us" car shopping after the first of the year.

After so many years working together very hard to ensure we could finally have our discharge in our pocket, now we feel like together we can deal well with just about anything life throws at us. We finally know how to budget and we know how to save. I wish we had learned this many years ago, but better late than never. These hard-learned lessons will serve us well during our planned retirements coming up in 3-5 years or so.

Hope i'm not being too nosey....just wondering how "life after" is once you are discharged. 12 months to go....well 12.5....

No worries. It's really hard to be in Ch 13 for such a long time. A lot of life happens over five years. It's amazing how sharing our stories with each other help us through the tougher times. I remember how I felt a year ago before we were done - so close and yet so far. This last year went a lot faster than I thought it might. Hang in there - you'll be at the finish line too before you know it!