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UTILIZATION FOR DUMMIES

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rom828
Established Contributor

UTILIZATION FOR DUMMIES

Please forgive what I'm sure is often asked question.  I'm still rather new, only posted once in past before posting yesterday & this morning.
 
It's just I'm so anxious to improve my score after climbing my way up from a really black hole. I've looked in the forum doing a search on 'utilization' but didnt find exactly my question yet and I'm still confused!
 
Do major credit cards and store cards carry different weight as far as scoring? And is utilization the total owed against your total CL or is it computed per card and then averaged?
 
I have 2 majors that I plan to pay down to 10% or less over the next 6-12 mos (CL1390/1000 owed & $1150 CL/1000 owed).  Have 5 store cards:  $880CL-owe 300, 670CL--owe $36, $500 CL, owe 0, $250 CL, owe 0 and $200 CL, owe $100. If all added together, seems to me I should see score improvement after paying down $1200 for a 25% UT. Or will I need to get the majors paid off or to 10% before I see improvement? BTW, My Scorepower shows 'not good' for utilization.
 
Thanks for any help and advice!
 
FICOS: TU 732(05-16-16) EQ '08 739( 05-16-16) EX 737 (08-17-16)
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1 REPLY 1
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: UTILIZATION FOR DUMMIES

Hi rom and welcome. Ask as many questions as you like. The more the merrier. That way we ALL learn. Smiley Happy

Utilization is calculated on both individual cc's AND all cc's combined.

Store cards are a subset of revolving credit in the types of credit used(eg: revolving credit, car loan, mortgage, etc. I've heard that there IS different weighting given to store cards vs. bank cards(M.C., Visa, etc), within the category of revolving credit. But I have no clue what that weighting is.

Please take a look at the pie chart in the Credit Education section of the myFiCO main page:

http://www.myfico.com/CreditEducation/

Hope that helps a little bit. Smiley Happy
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