67% utilization on 1 account, 5% on others

[Zingy]

Myfico members,

According to fico, scores consider the total revolving account balances in relation to the total credit limits on those accounts.

I want to know how will taking my utilization from 5% to 67% on one account, but overall from 5% to 20% across all accounts, would impact my score

Say I had 5% total utilization but I charge $6,700 to account #2:

1) 5000 credit limit 5% utilization $250.00

2) 10000 credit limit 67% utilization $6,700.00

3) 20000 credit limit 5% utilization $1,000.00

4) 2000 credit limit 5% utilization $100.00

5) 3000 credit limit   5% utilization $150.00

Total credit limit: 40000, total debt $8,200, total utilization is 20.5%

What would this do to my score? I currently have 720 credit score.

[Anonymous]

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@Zingy wrote:

Myfico members,

According to fico, scores consider the total revolving account balances in relation to the total credit limits on those accounts.

I want to know how will taking my utilization from 5% to 67% on one account, but overall from 5% to 20% across all accounts, would impact my score

Say I had 5% total utilization but I charge $6,700 to account #2:

1) 5000 credit limit 5% utilization $250.00

2) 10000 credit limit 67% utilization $6,700.00

3) 20000 credit limit 5% utilization $1,000.00

4) 2000 credit limit 5% utilization $100.00

5) 3000 credit limit   5% utilization $150.00

Total credit limit: 40000, total debt $8,200, total utilization is 20.5%

What would this do to my score? I currently have 720 credit score.

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It's really difficult to give you a definitive answer but I will ask you this.

I see from your signature that you're in the garden.  If you plan on staying there for awhile don't worry about your scores dropping and raising based in utilization.  It just doesn't matter if your scores drop by 30 points or the vice versa unless you intend to apply for something in the near future.  What's good about FUCO and utilization.  It has no memory.  if your scores drop now it's only temporary.  You'll drive yourself crazy worrying otherwise.

[racer-x]

On the other hand, I would suggest preserving as high of a score as possible simply because he's much harder to regain lost points.

OP - I'd pay all those little $100, 150, 250 balances off if possible.  Then it shouldn't be a problem running up 67% on one card...optimal, no but it shouldn't be a huge score drop.

Also, If you PIF those small balances and then run up 67% util on the one card, I would think that you would actuually gain points.  67% util on a single card isn't a big deal.

If you follow through with your plan, I'd say you'll lose 15-20 pts.easily.

[NRB525]

OP, if you are in the garden, Irish is correct, you don't need to worry about scores.

I will say that TU reports "All Bankcard" as one aggregate number, changing as individual cards change, so I don't see how the TU score would break out individual utilization. It would be triggered by a large change in utilization of one card, but only if that were a large percentage change in total utilization.

And as to keeping "all balances but one at zero" I would say the opposite. For now, you want a little action on all your cards, a lot of action on some cards, because during gardening you are trying to get CLI, and some cards seem to prefer you push the activity a little to show you need a CLI. You want to PIF if possible, but letting balances report is not bad until you get to an optimization period, and even then the points change of more cards reporting zero is going to be rather minor.