Improving credit after Bankruptcy

mazzza_2

Four years ago my husband and I had to make ourselves bankrupt.

We have now got ourselves sorted and have a fixed mentallity of "if we don't have the cash...we can't have it".

But saying that it is vertiualy impossiable to do certain things with out at least a reasonable credit limit.

we can not change energy supplier unless we pay them £250 retainer up front, and we are everdently with an expensive one for the area. when we did the bankruptcy we made a point of not being in debt to anything that was to do with our home (eg rent, gas, electric, council tax, telephone, etc).

And we had a situation earlier this year with the car (it broke down) and we had to rely on my dads credit card to get us back on the road. Hubby works in the next town and relies on the car to get there.

the thing is we want to make plans for the future, say 7 to 10 years time and I would appreicate any advice any one could give on improving your credit rating after bankrupcy with out it costing money that we are trying to save.

we make a point of paying our bills on time (D/D and S/O).

There seems to be alot of advice reguarding debt , which we took before although in our experiance writing letters and requests for lowering payments made things worst. But I can not find anything on recovering from this situation.

Is ther anyone wise to this situation with any pearls of wisdom they can pass on.

Many thanks.

Marilyn

cifpower

I believe you have to wait 6 years to become a discharged bankrupt so it drops off your credit file. Probably a good way to build credit is to apply for either a Barclaycard (their Initial credit card has an APR of 25%) or a Capital One Rebuild Card (which has an APR of 30%). If, as you say, pay all your bills by DD, simply pay the balance off in full at the end of every month. This way you will incur no interest charges.

Capital One are good because they religiously report your credit history to both Experian and Equifax every month. After 9 months to a year you should be able to apply for normal credit once again. The only problem is that Capital One start off with very low limits - usually £200. And Barclaycard Initial normally starts off at £350 - £400.

Every little helps and we all have to start off somewhere!