While sitting waiting for the bus, I thought I am earning enough to buy a car and open up my job options. You really can't find meaningful work without a car in Los Angeles. Well I decided against it because I wouldn't really be able to enjoy having a car until I found that job. I also didn't trust getting a car I could afford and using it for things like delivering pizza.
So continued to donate and collect plasma....
In the meantime I bought some things I wanted, some things I needed and went on a trip to Mexico City for a couple of days. I went to connect with a Brazilian woman who I found on another forum that discuss meeting and marrying foreign women accept this site is bias towards Latin America.
That connection failed, it's okay.
I have flirted with the idea of a podcast; a podcast that would talk about what I am doing. What am I doing? After trying things the conventional way, I am going to try it MY way and thus far, it has worked. That podcast is still coming but I think I will save it when I make my next move, which I have talked about from time to time, if you have been paying attention.
After 4.5 years of being unemployed and earning about $6,000 a year. I felt the next step was to work on my credit. I've never had good credit. I mess it up originally by buying a car, not taking it all that seriously and getting it repo'ed. In fact, I've had two cars repo'ed. Two taken by the police because they weren't registered as well. I have tried hard to learn from all these costly mistakes, but the key was to find a job I could tolerate and fix my credit.
The one job I could tolerate where the ones I didn't have to work weekends. The only job in the last decade I had that didn't require working on weekends was Merchandising.
I was already employed by Footprint, but the original project I was hired for was cancelled and accept for a Wal-Mart project late in the summer of 2014 I missed I wasn't contacted by them for any new projects.
Around that time I started spending less time here and more time at myFICO.com. I read as much as I could about repairing my credit and how to build credit. Once I formalized a plan, I went too it, that was Oct 2014.
I started with inactive credit report, an EX score of 635, TU of 550 and a EQ of 530. It could have been worse but the last repo wasn't on my report because it wasn't under my name. The only other negative I taken care off back in 2008 when I used some of the life insurance money to pay off the Capital One credit card I had.
I found I could get a secured credit card without any income verification. There are a couple of them now, but at the time I know found that the State Dept Credit Union offered this with the lowest interest rates and lowest secured deposit. I had to re-apply for GR (General Relief) anyway and usually get a lump sum when I do. So I did that and got my lump sum. I took the majority of that and got the secured card from SDCU.
If your interested in getting this card go here - https://www.sdfcu.org/
They report to all three Credit Agencies. For me it's the about 7 days after my due date (which is the 15th) my payment shows up on my all three CR's.
The theme that kept coming up while reading myFICO was to get maximum scoring on my credit reports, I needed three revolving lines of credit, IE credit cards and at least one installment loan.
So after getting one card, I was told (great forum) to get Capital One secured card. Since I had paid off my other Cap One card, I knew I wasn't black listed. When I first applied, I stated I didn't have a checking account. I was denied, I waited for the letter stating why. Turns out it was because I didn't have a checking account. First I wanted to confirm I was not in the Chex System. This is easy to do, just call them up https://www.consumerdebit.com/consumerinfo/us/en/index.htm and ask for them to send you a free report.
I got my report about 5 days later and there was nothing on it which is a good thing. I immediately took my own advice as since Occupy Wall ST LA I have supported banking with credit unions. I looked around for a suitable CU in my area, I decided on Logix which is the former name of the Lockheed-Martin Federal Credit Union. I deposited $50, $5 of which went into the savings account which is what the bank uses for investing it's on portfolio.
I asked on the myFICO forum if I should re-apply to Capital One, I was told to wait about 90 days. Well a few days later I said screw it and called the number on the letter I was sent and applied over the phone. I told them I had a checking account and was instantly approved to put $99 down for $200 secured card. I deposited $129 actually to get ahead of the annual fee.
By the time I got my second credit card, it was late Nov 2014.
Spent Dec seeing if I could really buy a car. Since I didn't have much cash (it was wrapped up in the secure cards) I had to find a way to get a reliable card without any money down.
I figured with both cards reporting now that I would give it a shot, stay tuned for that.
