Building Credit From Scratch with College Student Destney J.

Destney J. is a 19 year old college student in Louisiana who was having trouble getting access to credit before she found Self.

Why?

Because she didn’t have any credit.

And Destney’s not the only person facing this problem. Nearly 26 million other American adults have no official credit history, according to a [report](https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201505_cfpb_data-point-credit-invisibles.pdf "Learn what it means to be "credit invisible" from the CFPB. ") from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

If someone doesn’t have a report with one of the major credit bureaus, lenders often don’t have enough information to approve them for a credit account.

The Catch-22?

People who have little-to-no credit history are often blocked access to credit products. Which in turn makes it difficult to...well...build a credit history.

This is the struggle Destney faced.

“Before using Self, it was really hard getting approved for [credit products] and it’s really hard to build credit. It was really hard to check my credit as well, using third party services and websites.”

After all, if you don’t have enough credit information on file, you don’t even have a credit score to check.

Social media to the rescue

Destney was stuck in a seemingly impossible situation when she found Self on Twitter.

“I started to see what type of people you all were helping, how it could potentially help my situation,” she says. “After reading a little bit about it, and looking at the reviews, I decided to try it for myself.”

Before Self, Destney used a resource her bank had recommended to her.

But:

“I didn’t find it as useful as Self. So after I went to Self, I decided to stop using their resources, just strictly stayed with Self,” she says.

The results were eye-popping.

“So now, my credit score has improved a whole bunch, like over 200 points,” Destney says.

While some customers report larger credit score boosts if they’re starting from scratch than if they’re rebuilding bad credit, either way, building credit takes work and time. And everyone’s results are different, because everyone’s starting line with credit is different.

See how a single mom rebuilt her credit after job loss HERE.

Credit building doesn’t happen overnight

As she started building her credit, Destney realized a few key things:

1. “I realized that [building credit] takes time.”
2. “I realized that on-time payments is the key and it’s important.”

“I learned all this from Self,” she says.

Since using Self, Destney was able to get approved for a car loan, open a credit card account at another bank and get the Self Visa® Credit Card too.

“It’s safe to say that my life drastically changed after Self. Before, I felt that I wasn’t really properly preparing myself for the future, because I didn’t have the necessary tools. I wasn’t able to have the resources that I do now,” Destney says.

We can’t wait to see what Destney will “graduate” to next.

See for yourself

Ready to start building your credit? Learn more or get started at Self.inc

Not ready to commit to yourself just yet? HERE’s another helpful resource with other ways to build your credit.

About the author

Lauren Bringle is an Accredited Financial Counselor® and Content Marketing Manager with Self Financial – a financial technology company with a mission to help people build credit and savings.