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How does your state rank? Click on the link below to find out (MSN's article).
"We decided to use data from the Experian-Oliver Wyman Market Intelligence Reports and Experian’s IntelliView tool to examine which parts of the U.S. are closest to their credit limits. We took the average bankcard balance per consumer in each state and divided it by the average bankcard limit in each state for the first quarter of 2013, the most recent data available. To be fair, these states aren’t 100% maxed out on their credit cards, but they may be doing damage to their scores nevertheless.
All 50 states had a credit utilization ratio that was above the recommended 10% or less, and the states with the highest ratios all fell between the 20% and 30% range, meaning many residents may be damaging their credit by putting too much on their plastic."
Here's the link to the article on MSN.com
Mod, please feel free to move this if it's in the wrong section.
The top 10 do surprise me. I would have thought some of the more expensive states.
Other than Nevada and Alaska they are all southern/central states.
Yah, I'm surprised California isn't included in there since all I see here are people using plastics everywhere.
California was one I was shocked not to see, and WA state. It is very expensive there.
hmmm
Texas's presence in the top 10 does not surprise me. There seems to be a cultural aversion to saving and living within your means around here.
But considering that our own state government does a poor job of living within its means, maybe folks are just following the obvious example. Too bad it's such a terrible one.
If they are talking about 20-30% utilization then the States are hardly "maxed out". 2ndly, it isn't the States themselves but the consumers in the States they measured. So the misleading title in the article by 2 definitions. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see which locales have the highest utilization of cc's. I didn't expect Alaska to be No. 1.
How in the world did you get that much CL and your scores are below mine ? Your Credit history is longer than mine but my FICO are in the 750-763 except eq and I have only 10,950 total on all cards.
@paramed3 wrote:How in the world did you get that much CL and your scores are below mine ? Your Credit history is longer than mine but my FICO are in the 750-763 except eq and I have only 10,950 total on all cards.
I suppose you are referring to me? You didn't specify in your post.
My AAoA is my personal calculation - EQ shows something wildly different because they've dropped off a lot of my older accounts from their records.
My scores are near a low point from 2 years ago and I just got the stuffings knocked out of it with a new tradeline reporting otherwise I was hoping to be about 760 right now. My actual amount of debt carried is a bit higher than my historical. I was around 800 EQ and 850 TU, a couple of years ago before I started seeking more credit so as my accounts age, my score will climb upwards again. TU just gave me a lower score because of the new tradeline, otherwise it would have been about 24 pts higher. Actually the tradeline is so new that it hasn't reported any transactions so TU gave me a bogus reason for lowering the score "Not enough of your accounts have been paid as agreed." when the only thing that was different was the new tradeline! How can you pay for an account that is brand new???
Getting high credit limits wasn't a problem. I added $60k last year and another $25k this year. It has a lot to do with my income rising a lot in the last 2 years so when I app'd I got really high credit limits. Then I asked for additional CLIs and got them no problem either but I have to live with the hard pulls for a little bit longer. I will probably ask for CLI's on my AMEX again since its only a soft pull. I'm curious as to how high a limit they will give me. I've got people calling me up and willing to give me even more credit cards and low interest mortgages (one of my cc companies even offered 25k at 0% interest for 12 months on a card I don't use much) so I have to restrain myself so I don't keep spending.
Additionally, I live in Canada where the delinquincy rates on credit are a lot lower and indeed the scores are generally much higher. This alone would explain why it is easier to get high CLs where I live. What is considered a great score in the US (760) is just "good" in Canada wheras 800+ is a lot more common but then again our scoring systems are a bit different with max scores at 900 because so many people have near perfect credit.
@guiness56 wrote:California was one I was shocked not to see, and WA state. It is very expensive there.
I now live in CA and came from WA.
People seem responsible with their debt.
Although the states are expensive. They have higher wages.
The article ranked it based on utilization. Thus states with higher wages ranked lower because likely they also had higher limits.
WA and CA have low utilization.