How I went from a credit score of 516 to 595 in 7 weeks!

Hello Everyone! I decided to share how I have improved my credit score almost 80 points in 7 weeks. This isn’t a scam and you’re not paying me any money. I just want to share some positivity in this time and help everyone to come out better than we went into 2020.

Who: I am a single mom of a 9-month-old. He is the light of my life and the motivation for all I do. We live in a one-bedroom apartment and it is too small for him to be able to grow and roam.

What: It was when I decided to get my life together for him. Financially, I am struggling. I am definitely not one of those wealthy scammers trying to convince you of anything. The only things that I want to persuade you of are: 1. YOU can do it! 2. Once you change your mindset, obstacles become well-placed steppingstones.

When: In April, I made the decision that I wanted to buy a home. I looked at a ton of options include: Habitat for Humanity; Rent-to-Own; Low-income loans etc. The fact of the matter is I didn’t have the credit score to even be considered for anything. So, I put a plan into action. Operation Buy my Family a Home was on!

Step 1: Credit Monitoring.

First, you have to be aware of what your score is and what kinds of things are on your report. I used Credit Karma. They are free and it is what I had access to. Now you can request a copy of your report, for FREE, once a year from the credit bureaus. Just make sure you answer their questions correctly to identify yourself.

Step 2: Dispute

Credit Karma does a good job of offering you suggestions on what to do to raise your score. The one I took advantage of was disputes. This is simply where you are saying that the information about a particular account is inaccurate. I did an online dispute. (I didn’t know any better). All the experts will tell you to send certified mail to the creditors and if they do not respond in 30 days you can send another certified letter to the credit bureau and they should remove it. I will try this and let you know what happens. Anyway, I did two online disputes, Transunion and Experian. After about 2 weeks, I looked at my score again and it had increased about 20 points.

Now I am officially pumped. I can see progress!

Step 3: Building Credit

Getting rid of the negatives things on your credit is important. You also must build good credit. There are several ways to do this: You can get a credit card. You have to make on time payments though. You can get a revolving loan. Meaning you pay off a portion and that gives you funds that you can borrow again. On time payments, mega important. However, I didn’t qualify for any of it. (I work part-time). So, what did I do?

I saw this ad on Facebook for Self. It intrigued me. What Self is, is a loan that you pay off before you receive it. The whole point is to build a good payment history. There are many options to choose from. I chose a $700 for 2 years. Basically, for 2 years I have to pay $35 a month and they report to the credit bureaus. I was skeptical at first. I did some research and read some Google reviews and decided if I didn’t like it in a month or so I could cancel. It was worth the gamble.

I signed up and hoped. I kept monitoring my score and made payments on my Self account. (I will say that I had recently purchased a car, those payments are now on my report as well. I can’t tell you the contribution they added but I saw the Self account added before the car was).

Then, I was going about my life as a mom, employee, girlfriend, full-time student… then one Saturday (June 6th) I looked at my report and had the surprise of a lifetime.

Here is my current score with the Self account added.

So, my score went from 516 to 595!

Step 4: What’s next?

Now my next step is to do individual disputes. I will send the letters and see if anything else can be taken off my report. I plan to use the Self loan on accounts I still owe when I get it in about 2 years. Is this a fail proof plan? No. But with the mindset I have the only thing that is worse than a fail is not trying at all. In a few months I will post an update with you guys. Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have as much success as I have.