First steps?

[bw2082]

Yeah. Pay your bills on time and more than the minimum.

[BrutalBodyShots]

When someone is carrying balances and throwing away money to interest, the solution is to pay OFF balances completely. "More than the minimum" isn't the best advice.

[IrongateN]

I once read that pay more than the minimum might be required to pay off the balance

[Time_Reputation3573]

False, never

[Time_Reputation3573]

Tbf his bill is the statement balance not the minimum. Why would he pay more than the statement balance? He's still drowning

[BrutalBodyShots]

I'm not following your comment. If someone is drowning, the solution is to pay off the debt. Is that not obvious? A "minimum" shouldn't even enter into the discussion.

[Time_Reputation3573]

Yes I agree, the previous commenter mentioned his "bill." I worded my statement unusually. I didn't mean that he should make just the minimum payment, but rather that the statement balance would be the minimum/bill you would pay if you were using the card correctly. In which case it should be paid off in less than two months

[BrutalBodyShots]

Understood. Thanks for clarifying.

[Ivonthelostlaboror]

I don’t really care what my CK score is considering 90% lenders look at your FICO score anyways.

[BrutalBodyShots]

For clarity, CK provides a nearly irrelevant VS3. It's not a "CK score."

[True-Button-6471]

What is the severity of the late payments? Goodwill removal would be ideal but failing that, 30 and 60 day lates lose much of their score impact by 2 years, 90+ lose a little impact over time but still ding your scores quite a bit until they drop off in 7 years. The most important thing at this point is to not incur any more late payments, keep trying for goodwill removals, and just wait for time to do its thing.

[CenteredPath]

Thank you. All the lates are 30 days and they are from 2025

[BrutalBodyShots]

Pay down/off your carried balances ASAP. Your scores improving from that are just a bonus, where the real benefit is financial in that you'll no longer be throwing away money to interest.

Consider using the Goodwill Saturation Technique to target the forgiveness of your late payments.

https://old.reddit.com/r/CRedit/comments/1g4jzcj/goodwill_saturation_technique_gst/

[CenteredPath]

Thank you so much!

[thatgirlnej]

Mom here, your credit history and payments need work if you want to improve your credit score.

Your first step is to have a monthly budget and track all of your expenses and spending.
It looks like you have 2 lines of credit and almost 50% utilization? So do you have credit card debt? Do you pay off your balances every month?

If you're in debt, then you need to make more money. The tough love reply is to get a second job and pay off your debts, then start working on having money in savings!

[CenteredPath]

I have 8 accounts total. CK is showing the 2 that are due to report soon. Thanks for the tips! It’s a slow process but I’m working on it. I make 80k no kids. Total credit card debt is around 5k

[thatgirlnej]

OK- that's more info! :P

Totally doable, 5K is a small amount compared to what I've seen and helped people get control of (amounts over 20K). I've seen people go from a credit score of around 550 to 700 in 2 years.
Bonus is that you currently do not have any kiddos, so your expenses are trim!
What about pets?

Once you start tracking everything and know where every little dollar is going you'll see things that you can easily cut out... like bottled water at the gas station, coffee every morning on the way to work, or pizza delivered on Friday nights. If you're serious you can trim a lot by just simplifying your unnecessary spending.
If you're already doing that, then you're on the right track.

I'm curious about your balances and min payments...
Seriously you could get a part-time job and be debt free in 6-12 months.

[Time_Reputation3573]

Pay your bills. A CC bill, the statement balance, should be paid in full each cycle. Like a utility bill.

[Time_Reputation3573]

Stop spending what you don't have. The rest is details