Secured Credit Cards?

[Petal]

Hi, this is my first post to this forum, though I've been reading here and there for a couple of weeks.

We made some poor choices over the years and are finally getting things straightened out. We have no credit cards, but do have a mortgage and a student loan. We'd like to start working on repairing our credit, we know the obvious, like make payments on time etc, but it's hard to up your credit score without having a credit card or car payment.

An advisor suggested doing this: Take our own money, say $1,000, and put it on a secured credit card, then withdraw the full amount, open a bank account with the money and set it up so it pays the secured credit card each month... and if you could split your own money in two ($500 and $500) and open two secured credit cards and set them up the same way, all the better.

It's apparently a good way to raise your credit score. We're thinking of selling our current house and moving in about 1 1/2 years time, so we'd like to improve our credit score now for that.

What do you all think of this, and does anyone know a good place to get a secured credit card? The only ones I've seen have some huge interest rates.

A regular credit card is out of the question for us right now, as with our current credit score we may not qualify, or if we do it would probably be a high interest rate... plus we just don't manage credit cards very well!

Thanks!

[jmjj215]

Won't paying on your home loan and student loan help your credit score? If you want to move into a house in 1.5 years, you could use a lender that does manual underwriting. They would actually assess your true situation instead of just looking at your score. I wouldn't do this hocus pocus stuff - sounds like a hassle. The manual underwriter will get you a competitive rate if you're buying a house you can afford, can show you've paid your mortgage on time, and have held a job steady.