Understanding FICO® Scoring

[cfstr1]

That's great. Thanks for the info.

[smallfry]

2 credit cards showing a balance and a meager one at that. What a surprise. Not. Well done OP.

[mborgens]

I ran the simulator.

If I miss 1 payment, my score could drop as much as 140 points. Wow!

And on my lower score (817), paying my CC's to show a $0 balance, could raise my score by 20 points. I thought we were told to keep a low balance, interesting?

[smallfry]

---

mborgens wrote:
I ran the simulator.

If I miss 1 payment, my score could drop as much as 140 points. Wow!

And on my lower score (817), paying my CC's to show a $0 balance, could raise my score by 20 points. I thought we were told to keep a low balance, interesting?

---

Lots of opinions on that from both sides of the aisle. I have heard highest scores are obtained when paying in full before the statement cuts and some say to wait until the balance reports then PIF before the due date. Try both ways and see what happens.

[mborgens]

---

smallfry wrote: Lots of opinions on that from both sides of the aisle. I have heard highest scores are obtained when paying in full before the statement cuts and some say to wait until the balance reports then PIF before the due date. Try both ways and see what happens.

---

I'm already doing the latter. I PIF each month after the balance is reported.

It seems odd that a zero balance would generate higher scores than a balance between 0 and 1%