It never hurts to raise limits. You got the idea. UTL is the key. Lower UTL better. So if you can't spend less raise your limits. But I still think you should do both, spend less and raise limits. 
@Anonymous wrote:
I tried to post this before but don't see it so if this is a repeat-sorry. I pay my cc off every month but I tend to charge over 10%. It's a fairly new card so the limit isn't that high. I'm thinking I should raise my limit so my utilization is <10%. My score is excellent finally so I'm sure they'll raise it. Am I thinking correctly in raising the limit?marybeth
Nothing at all wrong with spending well over 10% of a card's credit limit, if you have the cash to pay it off, and if you don't mind doing the two-part payment, where you pay it down to under 10% before the statement date, and then finish it off however you want. If you are going to PIF it, it's even simpler: pay early. True, you lose about one week's worth of whatever infinitesimal interest your money might be earning, but real world, unless you're moving thousands of dollars around, it's probably a negligible figure. On 2.6% APY, one week's of interest on $1000 is 50 cents.
I spend the same amount of money that I would if I didn't use credit cards; I just put it all on plastic. This way I get rewards, plus I don't have to carry cash around. (Back when I carried cash, it just flew out of my wallet 24/7, lol.) But except for one balance transfer card that is at 43%, my overall util is way under 1%. It's not that hard to have it both ways, if you want to keep your reported util down, which is completely up to you.
It's all in deciding what util you want to have report, and then taking the steps to make that happen. Many people argue that there's no point in torturing util in this manner if you're not ready to app for something, and I see their point, but I like that this is an element of my credit over which I have complete control. Well, as long as TU ever updates, that is.
