A few years ago, I found myself in this exact situation. It wasn’t easy and honestly I had no idea what I was going to do. I wanted to improve my credit but didn’t know how. What I did know was that I needed to figure out how to get a credit card.

Since I didn’t know better, I started applying for cards left and right. I was hoping that eventually one of the card companies would issue me an unsecured card. That didn’t happen. Getting unsecured credit cards with bad credit is almost impossible, without preparation. I definitely wasn’t prepared. I was turned down left and right.

After a bunch of denials, I finally decided to do some reading. I discovered that I first needed to take out a secured credit card. According to what I read, this would allow me to build credit history. I would have to put down a deposit of a few hundred dollars but it seemed like it would solve my issue. It eventually did.

Within six or seven months, I was able to get approved for unsecured cards. I still didn’t have perfect credit, but I had shown that I could make my payments on time. Within a year, I had three unsecured cards. I continued to pay them on time and I now have stellar credit and fairly large credit lines. My biggest credit line right now is around $18,000. It’s almost funny to me that at one time I couldn’t get a card at all.

If you have had a hard time taking out unsecured credit cards, you should take out a secured card. It will get everything back on track.