In June 2022, one of HOPE’s strategic alliance partners referred Kaitlynn C. to financial wellbeing coach Erin Smith. Kaitlynn had a goal of purchasing a home by August 2022. As diligent as she was in pursuing her goal, she ran into a few obstacles with collections on her credit and a score that was below the minimum requirements for mortgage lenders. She had already been working on her credit for a few months, but she sought additional guidance to help her finish achieving her goal.

In their initial meeting, they level set and determined where their starting point was. Kaitlynn had a credit score of a 603, approximately $300 in savings, and a collection balance of $5051. At the end of the meeting, the pair had an executable plan of action and a set of tasks to be completed before their next session the following month. During our second meeting in July 2022, she had raised her savings balance to have $2500, she used her Chime card as advised and was working on paying old debts off! Kaitlynn also decided that she was going to adjust her goal and rent month to month to give her credit time to grow.

Despite the great progress, Kaitlynn and Erin discovered that there was a new medical collection that hit her credit. However, since things were starting to report as paid and being taken off her credit, this new collection only caused a drop in her score of 9 points! By August, she also had all her other collection accounts paid, and they were just waiting for it to reflect in her credit reports.

As late last year, Kaitlynn was officially in the process of buying a house! She now had a score of 672 and has more than $3000 set aside in savings! She was able to raise her credit score 69 points, increase her savings by $4751, and reduce her debt by $5825 in less than 6 months.

“I am so blessed to have found the lake house and I love that it’s my forever home! Thank you so much for your help thru the process.”-Kaitlynn