November 2016 I filed Chapter 7; before I filed my credit score was 567.
I checked in January 2017 and my score was 592.
Debts still showing was my 77k student loans, and I was an authorized user on a friend’s Capital One card with 2k limit and 90% utilization but with good on-time payment history.
I removed myself as an auth user on friend’s Cap1 card in February because it was hurting me more than helping and my score jumped up to 652 in April, which was surprising to me.
I followed the norm advice of applying for a secured credit card. I actually got 2 secured cards, one with Discover for 200 and one with my credit union for 500, both in May 2017.
I used it throughout the month to full limits but paid it off in full before the bill cycle date.
February 2018, Discover automatically gave me my security deposit back and increased limit to 2000; credit union I had to make a request for it back and they granted it plus raised limit to 2500.
Throughout those 2017-18 months my score would go up and down between 1-15 points just about every week.
I applied for a unsecured personal loan in May this year and got approved for 10k, which is what I asked for so not sure if I would’ve been approved for more.
I see this is getting long so I’ll close with I believe if bankruptcy can be avoid, then avoid it because it’s on your profile for 10 years, but if it’s necessary to use that option I don’t see anything wrong with it so long as your doing so to not be back in the same poor money management situation as you were before.
Also, you must be someone who can be patient because the rebuild process is turtle slow. My limits certainly aren’t impressive, but it’s all the banks are willing to give me being I had a major ding less than two years ago, so I’ll take it.
