I've searched this forum researching others' credit problems & the advice given has been very helpful. I appreciate the feedback & would like to get some advice for the following.

A little background on my story:
I was medically discharged from the Army in late 2011. I got divorced several months prior to that. I was on antidepressants for suicide attempts that really screwed me up worse plus fighting with my family & trying to reestablish my life outside of the military. It was a crappy time for me to say the least. Bottom line though, I racked up the following debt:

-$9000 overdrafts
-$8000 military star card
-$5000 BoA card
-$5000 USAA card
-$1500 USAA card
-$5k Altima (Total was 24k. I paid $500/month. got repo'd after about 7 payments. It was sold at auction for 16k, so they now claim I owe ~$5k for the difference)
-$1400 break lease on an apartment
-$2000 Paypal card
-$500 Orchard Bank card
Plus several other bills like a vet bill & verizon for probably another grand.

All of this in 2012. This happened due to a lack of proper judgement when I had logically concluded that I could make more money by going into the pits rather than grinding poker. At the time, I was a full time reg at the Tunica Horseshoe making probably $1500ish a week at 1/3, plus I had about 10k that I came home from the army with in my checking acct. When I was just a reg, for several months all I did was play poker, I had the ONE $5000 limit USAA credit card & my score was around 730. It was only my 2nd credit account so my history was still brand new.

I went into some sort of psychotic episode (where I thought somehow blackjack & craps would make me more money than 1/3 poker, I was an idiot) for several weeks & blew nearly $20k in the pits plus on a trip to vegas by myself. Then when I came back from going broke, I took out more cards to pay bills til I got a job & worked it all off. My score went to around 390ish.

Anyway, I've managed to work my ass off while living with a gracious grandmother & completely paid off all of my accounts listed on my report. I've monitored Credit Karma closely for over a year watching as each account got paid off. I had to dispute a few but it turned out to be beneficial because all but one agency completely removed the account after payoff. That one agency has 3 accounts that are now listed as "paid & closed". The rest were completely removed. I managed a good story for the agencies who all cut me deals & I negotiated most of them for roughly 35% of the total I racked up. I paid off the overdrafts first, then the cards. The only things I haven't paid are the auto loan difference (they sold it at auction for 16k, so they still claim I owe ~5k for the difference) & the Military Star card (they have garnished the small pension I receive because its a federal agency plus they take my tax returns for it).


I currently only have one secured card from US Bank for $500 I got in March & have not missed payment. This is the only line of credit I have open. I do have a checking account at a very small local bank thanks to my grandmother talking to them.

I'm also barred (blacklisted; its called the Early Warning System that apparently 90% of all banks use to screen customers) because of the overdrafts & have to resort to using prepaid debit cards, which isn't that bad. That lasts for 7 years. I've called them to try to resolve & they claim there is nothing I can do unless the information is inaccurate. So I have to serve my time.

The good thing about the star card & the auto loan difference is neither of them appear on my credit reports. I'm pretty sure the car loan difference hasn't been sold off but they don't seem to be pursuing me for it. The Military Star card, being a federal agency, won't negotiate with me since they are garnishing my pension. However, they're charging me $105 just in interest with only $25 going towards the principle each month, so my plan is to work my credit up enough to get a personal loan for $8000 to refinance that & make payments at a lower rate with a bank.

Right now, Credit Karma (transunion) reports my score at 548 & Creditsesame (experian) reports at 615. I'm debating using www.myfico.com for 3 months ($19.95) just to monitor my progress because I would like to open a real credit card where I can get airline miles or cashback rewards plus I would like to expand my credit limit so I won't kill my utilization percentage all the time. With only the $500 secured card, I can only use $130 to keep it under 30% utilization.

My questions are: What else can I do to help complete my credit repair to get back into the 700s? What steps can I take to attempt to refinance that Military Star card? And also, what you guys think about the MyFico site for monitoring for a few months?

No help to offer, but congrats on being a winner, OP. Most people who go down the road you did don't get back up, and not many of the ones that do do it with such determination and lack of self pity.

Isn't Credit Karma redundant with MyFico?

There's a forum where this type of post is probably best purposed: http://creditboards.com/forums/

Very active forum, and lots of advice on there for these types of situation.

thanks very much

I agree with Toothsoother, you have done a solid job recovering from a horrible situation, and it's great that you didn't go the bankruptcy route. After reading through I have the following comments.

Unfortunately you can't really do much with the Military Star card since they already won in court (or bypassed court since it was federal as you said). That said, on 105 in interest per month is 1.3125% per month and without doing any effective annual rate or other real rate calculations, that's 15.75% per year. Unfortunately for you, your credit will be extremely unlikely (I'll go as far as to say impossible) to get a personal loan at any rate better than that by yourself. Fortunately, 15.75% is way better than many people in your situation would be paying. I'll discuss an alternative in the next paragraph.

In terms of repairing your credit, one suggestion ties in to the military star card. One way you can get a personal loan, and on better terms than the card is doing, is to have someone with stellar credit cosign a personal loan for you (maybe your grandmother). Any amount would be helpful, even if she just did a couple thousand that you plowed into the card. The benefit here is two fold, both in that you can actually achieve a better rate this way to repay the card faster, and the additional personal loan will help you to rebuild your credit.

Other suggestions that you probably already know but I'll say anyway. Don't apply for credit limit increases that use hard pulls on your credit, and don't apply for new cards until you are absolutely sure you can qualify. Hard pulls will eventually add up and hurt you and they take about 2 years, maybe 1, to go away. 30% credit utilization is fine, 15% would be better. You could just use the card to only pay your phone bill every month or something to run a small balance. I see no reason to use it otherwise unless it has some kind of reward on it.

Lastly, paying for monitoring is a bit useless for now. You know where you stand, and all you can do now is give it time. As your account(s) age, and your history of on time payments age, your score will get better. Hopefully your income will rise as well which will help when you do apply for something on your own. Keep using creditkarma/creditsesame and look to apply for a card when your score approaches something like 640. Retail store cards should be easy and you can get 1 or 2 then and use some small amount on that as well.

Good luck!

You are a sucker for a story.

Thanks for the advice. It's tough just sitting by & waiting when I've constantly been attacking the next item for the past 6 months. I wish there was more I could do to jump back into the low 700s. That Star card isn't bothering me too bad since its not on my report, so I'll just have to send extra money to apply to the principle when I get it. I'm not in a huge hurry.

When would you apply for a real card? Around 650? Also, once I get approved for a real card, obviously I'll want that secured card's age on my history so do I just leave it open for awhile? It's only a $500 secured.