topic Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not. in Credit Cards

Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:38:57 GMT

Im looking for clarification on balances. I often see people say to only have one card reporting a balance for reporting. 6 months ago, I spoke to so,done about my fico account and he said leave a tiny balance on all cards. Granted at the time, I only had two cards so maybe that made a difference but I'm confused. One of my monitoring services says my score could be better but to many cards show balances. I was only letting 5-10$ report. So now this month so far 3 cards have reported zero balance yet not improvement on score. Anyone know how to best handle letting a balance report?

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

kdm31091 — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:46:52 GMT

I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:52:08 GMT

^^^^ Yes.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:56:13 GMT

@kdm31091 wrote:
I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.

I am not necessarily trying to maximize, I just noticed if I have a zero balance EQ will knock me hard if I do suddenly leave a balance on a card, one month is was 1.00 and my score dropped 7 points. They claimed it was because the card had a zero balance the month before. I always pay all my cards each month as charges hit, sometimes I have let a small amount sit there to record. He also told me if I don't let a card report a balance at least every 3 months fico will consider it an un used account which would hurt my score. There are to many little rules and I'm trying to figure them all out

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

redpat — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:56:58 GMT

+1 what kmd said.

Welcome back, lol.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Kevin86475391 — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:59:21 GMT

I agree. I never worry this much about utilization. I PIF weekly (just my own personal preference in how to handle my bills), but never worry about closing/reporting dates. I just let whatever happens to report report - be that nothing, or a week's worth of spending - and that's always worked fine for me.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

dragontears — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 01:07:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.
I am not necessarily trying to maximize, I just noticed if I have a zero balance EQ will knock me hard if I do suddenly leave a balance on a card, one month is was 1.00 and my score dropped 7 points. They claimed it was because the card had a zero balance the month before. I always pay all my cards each month as charges hit, sometimes I have let a small amount sit there to record. He also told me if I don't let a card report a balance at least every 3 months fico will consider it an un used account which would hurt my score. There are to many little rules and I'm trying to figure them all out

I agree with kdm, especially while gardening don't stress over "optimal utilization". It is normal for your scores to fluctuate unless you are really micromanaging your utilization. For example, my scores normally fluctuate ~10 depending on how many cards report a balance that month (never report >10% on any individual card).

Yes FICO model will "ding" you for having all cards report $0, yes FICO models will "ding" you for having a balance reported on more than one card and yes FICO model will "ding" you for having a balance report on a card that previously didn't for awhile but these "dings" generally go away the next month.

Don't drive yourself nuts with these minor fluctuations focus more on long term trends in your scores.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 01:12:59 GMT

@dragontears wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.
I am not necessarily trying to maximize, I just noticed if I have a zero balance EQ will knock me hard if I do suddenly leave a balance on a card, one month is was 1.00 and my score dropped 7 points. They claimed it was because the card had a zero balance the month before. I always pay all my cards each month as charges hit, sometimes I have let a small amount sit there to record. He also told me if I don't let a card report a balance at least every 3 months fico will consider it an un used account which would hurt my score. There are to many little rules and I'm trying to figure them all out
I agree with kdm, especially while gardening don't stress over "optimal utilization". It is normal for your scores to fluctuate unless you are really micromanaging your utilization. For example, my scores normally fluctuate ~10 depending on how many cards report a balance that month (never report >10% on any individual card).

Yes FICO model will "ding" you for having all cards report $0, yes FICO models will "ding" you for having a balance reported on more than one card and yes FICO model will "ding" you for having a balance report on a card that previously didn't for awhile but these "dings" generally go away the next month.

Don't drive yourself nuts with these minor fluctuations focus more on long term trends in your scores.

Thank you for the input. Funny thing is, the only one that I really pay attention to is EQ, they seem to hate me and lower my score constantly when the others don't. I guess I'm so sensitive to them because for some reason they deleted all of my past history. I had 21 years on all three and now EQ shows only 11 years. No clue why they chose to do that but it does make me hypersensitive to them

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 01:13:58 GMT

a
@dragontears wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.
I am not necessarily trying to maximize, I just noticed if I have a zero balance EQ will knock me hard if I do suddenly leave a balance on a card, one month is was 1.00 and my score dropped 7 points. They claimed it was because the card had a zero balance the month before. I always pay all my cards each month as charges hit, sometimes I have let a small amount sit there to record. He also told me if I don't let a card report a balance at least every 3 months fico will consider it an un used account which would hurt my score. There are to many little rules and I'm trying to figure them all out
I agree with kdm, especially while gardening don't stress over "optimal utilization". It is normal for your scores to fluctuate unless you are really micromanaging your utilization. For example, my scores normally fluctuate ~10 depending on how many cards report a balance that month (never report >10% on any individual card).

Yes FICO model will "ding" you for having all cards report $0, yes FICO models will "ding" you for having a balance reported on more than one card and yes FICO model will "ding" you for having a balance report on a card that previously didn't for awhile but these "dings" generally go away the next month.

Don't drive yourself nuts with these minor fluctuations focus more on long term trends in your scores.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

NRB525 — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 03:28:29 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for the input. Funny thing is, the only one that I really pay attention to is EQ, they seem to hate me and lower my score constantly when the others don't. I guess I'm so sensitive to them because for some reason they deleted all of my past history. I had 21 years on all three and now EQ shows only 11 years. No clue why they chose to do that but it does make me hypersensitive to them

Interesting. An older card or account must have dropped off EQ for some reason.

FWIW, in January 2015 I had 14 open cards, all reporting balances, 2 closed cards with balances, and since then I've gotten 10 cards, nearly all the 24 reporting open cards report balances, Diners will when it reports. My scores have gone up due to paying down balances a bit. There is probably some penalty in points that I'm getting ( and don't see ) for having all cards report, but it is more likely the remaining high open balances, at $25k, which is the main culprit.

If one is apping a mortgage, then it makes sense to limit the number of cards, but for credit card apps? My experience is that the number of cards reporting is probably not an issue except with particular lenders: Barclays, FNBO who denied me, PenFed when the initially denied me ( though I just recently got Promise after working a secured card for a year... with over 20 open cards reporting balances).

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 04:02:54 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for the input. Funny thing is, the only one that I really pay attention to is EQ, they seem to hate me and lower my score constantly when the others don't. I guess I'm so sensitive to them because for some reason they deleted all of my past history. I had 21 years on all three and now EQ shows only 11 years. No clue why they chose to do that but it does make me hypersensitive to them

Interesting. An older card or account must have dropped off EQ for some reason.

Yes, they deleted many tls that were all prefect histories. It's like they up and decided to remove everything from my life before 11 years ago. Ex and tu didn't remove them and my scores are always better that EQ. Things that do nothing to my score on ex and tu always lowers my score in ex, things that make my score on ex and tu improve has no effect on my EQ score. Makes no sense to me at all.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 04:03:17 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for the input. Funny thing is, the only one that I really pay attention to is EQ, they seem to hate me and lower my score constantly when the others don't. I guess I'm so sensitive to them because for some reason they deleted all of my past history. I had 21 years on all three and now EQ shows only 11 years. No clue why they chose to do that but it does make me hypersensitive to them

Interesting. An older card or account must have dropped off EQ for some reason.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

ksantangelo23 — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 01:13:37 GMT

I accidentally paid off all my cards (doesnt that sound weird out of context?) and my score dropped EX dropped by 25 points

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 01:24:06 GMT

@ksantangelo23 wrote:
I accidentally paid off all my cards (doesnt that sound weird out of context?) and my score dropped EX dropped by 25 points

Oh man, that's terrible! So sorry

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

ksantangelo23 — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 01:29:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@ksantangelo23 wrote:
I accidentally paid off all my cards (doesnt that sound weird out of context?) and my score dropped EX dropped by 25 points
Oh man, that's terrible! So sorry

It's ok, my AMEX statement will cut on Sunday with $10

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 01:38:14 GMT

@kdm31091 wrote:
I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.

Are you sure? If you read other contributors' posts about maximizing your score, you'll see quite a bit of contradictory info...

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 01:42:38 GMT

@ksantangelo23 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@ksantangelo23 wrote:
I accidentally paid off all my cards (doesnt that sound weird out of context?) and my score dropped EX dropped by 25 points
Oh man, that's terrible! So sorry
It's ok, my AMEX statement will cut on Sunday with $10

Well, that's great then. Typically how much of that 25 points might you regain?

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

SouthJamaica — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 03:37:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Im looking for clarification on balances. I often see people say to only have one card reporting a balance for reporting. 6 months ago, I spoke to so,done about my fico account and he said leave a tiny balance on all cards. Granted at the time, I only had two cards so maybe that made a difference but I'm confused. One of my monitoring services says my score could be better but to many cards show balances. I was only letting 5-10$ report. So now this month so far 3 cards have reported zero balance yet not improvement on score. Anyone know how to best handle letting a balance report?

Best to have less than half of the accounts reporting a balance, but to have at least one reporting a balance.

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 03:59:31 GMT

FAKO scores reflect zero balances stronger positively I have notice, even when the statement balances are the same amount overall. When you take off four $75 balances but charge 300 elsewhere it looks better even if the util is exactly the same

Re: Allow balances to report on cards or not.

NRB525 — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 04:07:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
I personally don't lose sleep over it. You can maximize FICO by letting one card report 1-9% and the rest zero, but as we have seen people mention, the gains are often fairly small, and it's questionable whether it's worth the effort. If you had a car loan or major app coming up, sure, it might be worth it to have the highest possible score, but other than that I don't see much point.

Utilization is just a "moment in time" thing with no memory, so you get no long term benefit out of maximizing it each month.

Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with doing it that way if you choose. It's fine. I just don't personally think it's worth the time or effort for minimal gain that isn't a long lasting part of one's credit file anyway.
Are you sure? If you read other contributors' posts about maximizing your score, you'll see quite a bit of contradictory info...

Yes, KDM's statements are in line with others who want to "maximize score". But you have to put the phrase "maximize score" into context.

"Maximize Score" by letting one card report does not mean one goes immediately to 850. It means one will gain 5, 10 or some similar "fairly small" points change. One is still technically maximizing score, from only a utilization perspective, but that score is bounded by bigger issues like length of credit history, any baddies, missed payments, or numbers of recent apps/new accounts. Those other factors are much more difficult to "maximize" in the short term, so the only real tool any of us has to "maximize" ( get those last 10 points! ) at a point in time is utilization.