Climbing the Score Mountain

[poldies4]

I'm wondering a bit about how difficult the last leg to the top of the FICO mountain is? My score was 734 and then fell to 703 (because of rebucketing per myFICO's explanation) which is a bummer right now, but good in the long run.

My question is this: Since the only thing hurting my score is my credit card utilization - how hard is it going to be to get my score up? My credit history/average age of accounts/inquiries are all listed as positives. The only negatives I get are "high credit card utilization" and "too many accounts showing a balance" on my revolving credit (although 2 of the 4 showing are actually PIF, just not reported yet.)

I brought my utilization from 56% (where it was both at 734 and 703) down to 49% and only got a 3 point bump. I should have it down to 30% by the end of April, but I'm worried about not seeing a good bump in my score.

Is it harder to increase your FICO score the cleaner your report? Is there anything obvious I'm missing besides paying down my debt?

[pakman92]

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@poldies4 wrote:
I'm wondering a bit about how difficult the last leg to the top of the FICO mountain is? My score was 734 and then fell to 703 (because of rebucketing per myFICO's explanation) which is a bummer right now, but good in the long run.

My question is this: Since the only thing hurting my score is my credit card utilization - how hard is it going to be to get my score up? My credit history/average age of accounts/inquiries are all listed as positives. The only negatives I get are "high credit card utilization" and "too many accounts showing a balance" on my revolving credit (although 2 of the 4 showing are actually PIF, just not reported yet.)

I brought my utilization from 56% (where it was both at 734 and 703) down to 49% and only got a 3 point bump. I should have it down to 30% by the end of April, but I'm worried about not seeing a good bump in my score.

Is it harder to increase your FICO score the cleaner your report? Is there anything obvious I'm missing besides paying down my debt?

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You will see a good bump when Util is <10%.  1-2% percent is ideal.   Also, having only 1 revolver report a balance is ideal.  And finally, that 1 revolver showing balance should have individual utilization <10%.

In short, have 1 card show a small balance to maximize.

[lg8302ch]

looks to me that your in better position than me. util is the easiest score booster. my util is 1% no baddies and therefore there is only on the AAoA I can get any higher and this requires a lot of patience. if you constantly pay down and no new inq or accounts your scores will probably go up every month and not get stuck like mine. try it..good luck

[poldies4]

Thanks!

I just noticed that when I was in a (presumably) lower bucket, it was easier to get my score higher - I sat at 741 for quite some time with 65% CC utilization.

In this new bucket, I paid down $4000 in CC debt and only saw a 3 point bump.  I have 7 open CC, 4 reporting a balance (although once things report it will be down to 2 showing a balance).  I know to only have 1 card reporting less than 1% is the ideal, but I'm about $10,000 away from that, lol!  

I'm used to having a much higher FICO score (indeed my TU score went up 10 points while my EQ lost 31!) and am hoping to see some significant bumps along the road to 1% utilization.  

Where should I see my next bump?  Under 40% or not until under 30%?

[pakman92]

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@poldies4 wrote:

Thanks!

I just noticed that when I was in a (presumably) lower bucket, it was easier to get my score higher - I sat at 741 for quite some time with 65% CC utilization.

In this new bucket, I paid down $4000 in CC debt and only saw a 3 point bump.  I have 7 open CC, 4 reporting a balance (although once things report it will be down to 2 showing a balance).  I know to only have 1 card reporting less than 1% is the ideal, but I'm about $10,000 away from that, lol!  

I'm used to having a much higher FICO score (indeed my TU score went up 10 points while my EQ lost 31!) and am hoping to see some significant bumps along the road to 1% utilization.  

Where should I see my next bump?  Under 40% or not until under 30%?

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What is the event that you believe that put you in the new bucket (aka scorecard).  I was able to ascertain that from your post.

[poldies4]

I'm not sure what triggered it. My reports at 731 and at 703 are identical except my Credit History went from 16 years 5 months to 16 years 6 months. My utilization, everything else was the same. I have no baddies, no inquiries, nothing else to explain the change. None of my CC payments had posted, so my utilization was the same on both reports. The message from myFICO described the reason for the fall as essential being "placed into a new group of credit users thus being scored more harshly" - rebucketing.