@Anonymous wrote:Hello all at this wonderful community! I've been a long time lurker here soaking up as much info about credit as possible from all of you fine people and finally got around to creating an account.
My question is regarding a widely debated topic. I have 6 credit cards along with a handful of retail cards and from what I've learned through the many on this forum is that to optimize utilization I should report a balance of 1-9% on one credit card and pay in full the rest. Now my question is say the credit card I decide to report the balance on has a CL of $4,500 and my total CL is $34,700 and I wanted to aim for 1% utilization, would I report a balance of $347 (which is 1% of the total CL) or would I report a balance of $45 (which is 1% of just that one credit card's CL)?
I have read a lot of different replies about this topic saying you should only report 1% of the individual credit card's limit, then I've read others saying you should report 1% of the total credit limit across all CC's. And mathematically I question whether reporting 1% of the invidual credit card's limit is correct or not because wouldn't that drop the total utilization down to 0% and negatively impact your Fico score? ($45 / $34,700 = 0.1%)
I recently purchased Experians report for 1 month at $4.95, and the utilization model showing next to the Fico score calculates utilization based off of the total credit limit, as does Credit Karma's "Credit Card Utilization" under the credit report card feature. This translates into "0% Utilization" when reporting anything under 1% of your total CL. So I am just confused as to how reporting a balance of 1% of an individual card's limit would translate into a positive score when that figure is a lot less than 1% of the total CL across all Credit Cards.
Any help from you all would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to the forums. You would aim to report 1-9% of that specific cards CL. The "sweet spot" if you will is different for everyone, but anywhere between there is fine. Also take note that for FICO scoring purposes any non-zero number counts as at least one percent, so if you dont want to charge a full one percent on a card, a small transaction is fine instead.
Thanks for the welcome and the quick response -NewGuy-!
So do you know for a fact that any non zero number reported will be rounded up to 1% on all fico scoring models? I ask this because as I mentioned 2 months ago both Experian's credit report and Credit Karma's report showed me utilizing 0% of my "Total Credit Limit" and knocked me down points on my score when in fact I reported a $65 balance on 1 credit card.
Then last month I let a balance of $382 report on that same card, refreshed my experian report, and it rounded up my utilization to 2% and my score went up from 716 to 723
Doesn't the total utilization across all credit limits factor in just as heavily as keeping individual utilization on credit cards low?
Sorry NewGuy I don't mean to question your knowledge on this topic as you have more experiance than I, but I would just like a definitive answer on this to put me at ease so I can continue on my credit journey to the higly praised 850. I do have an auto loan and a student loan so there's no reason I shouldn't be able to in the near future 
If in fact any non zero balance will be reported to 1% and experian + credit karma are scoring utilization wrong, then I will be more than happy to knock down my balance to $1 every month 
I guess the best way to find out exactly is to ask everyone: Has anyone checked their MyFico scores on this website and found that any non zero balance reported showed up as 1% utilization across all CL's on their report?
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the welcome and the quick response -NewGuy-!
So do you know for a fact that any non zero number reported will be rounded up to 1% on all fico scoring models? I ask this because as I mentioned 2 months ago both Experian's credit report and Credit Karma's report showed me utilizing 0% of my "Total Credit Limit" and knocked me down points on my score when in fact I reported a $65 balance on 1 credit card.
Then last month I let a balance of $382 report on that same card, refreshed my experian report, and it rounded up my utilization to 2% and my score went up from 716 to 723
Doesn't the total utilization across all credit limits factor in just as heavily as keeping individual utilization on credit cards low?
Sorry NewGuy I don't mean to question your knowledge on this topic as you have more experiance than I, but I would just like a definitive answer on this to put me at ease so I can continue on my credit journey to the higly praised 850. I do have an auto loan and a student loan so there's no reason I shouldn't be able to in the near future
If in fact any non zero balance will be reported to 1% and experian + credit karma are scoring utilization wrong, then I will be more than happy to knock down my balance to $1 every month
No worries, no harm in asking questions for sure. I know for a fact that CKs scoring model does NOT work this way, as it has to be an actual 1%, like you stated. Not sure about EXs scoring, but wouldn't surprise me to be the same way. However, with FICO it's either exactly zero or at least a percent.
As a personal experience, I had a balance on one card that was a tenth of a percent, up from a zero balance, and my score went up accordingly.
Awesome, and thanks again for the fast response NewGuy! I will take your advice and put it to work. I will definitely leave a small balance on one card from now on with the peace of mind knowing that as long as there is a balance, regardless of how small it is, it will be reported as 1% for true Fico scoring.
Again thank you kind sir. And off we go on the journey to the elusive 850 