Understanding FICO® Scoring

[bettercreditguy1]

I have a temporary score drop of 20 points on EQ as I had 5 reporting credit cards, plus mortage and car loans.  I use my "sock drawered" cards once or twice every six months to show activity. I currently have 7 bank cards reporting. Amex revolver, Chase Freedom, Chase Airlines, Discover, PenFed, Community, and Capitol One.

[Shogun]

You will often see that +/- 20 points varying from time to time as your util changes.  Looks like you have a good grasp on your credit.  Congrats and keep it up!

[bettercreditguy1]

Thanks ShoGun, I just wanted to validate the number for some of our newbies as  I was aware that my number(s)  would temporarily drop. My score did probably increase a tad as the "recently looking for new credit  category" went from bad to good. (I opened a cc in early June of this year.)

[GregB]

Number of accounts with balances will generally have a few numbers where it changes your score by 5-15 points. That number will vary according to other info in your reports. You seem to have to go significantly past 50% of accounts with balances if you only have a few accounts.. Mine seems to be consistently when going from 12 to 13 accounts with balances out of 25. I seem to have another "step" around 17-18 but haven't been there for awhile. This score change seems to be COMPLETLY different than utilization percentage. In other words, I will get the score hit as my number of accounts with balances goes up past that point even if my utilization goes down slightly. I will always have the "too many accounts with balances" appear in EQ FICO "things that are hurting your score" when I have the score hit.