topic Re: Utilization percentage question in General Credit Topics

Utilization percentage question

PrettyPeacock — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 01:53:38 GMT

I currently am working on rebuilding my credit after a BK I had a few years ago. There is one account with Chase that is showing up on my account as open and it isn't. But it is one of those mistakes that helps me so why bother telling them to take it off, since it was for a $30,000 credit card. The issue is that the few little cards I have are for cap one secured, harley davidson secured, victoria's secret and finger hut and I don't use them that much. I know that I need to get to a 1% utilization rate but is that a true 1% or just anything over 0%? Because if it is 1% then I need to have balances of about $350 or more and I don't really want to run up those 2 secured cards to near their max. And fingerhut is so overpriced that I only plan to use it once or twice a year to help my credit. I am also worried that if I have bigger balances each month with the secured cards they may not switch to unsecured at some point because my utilization with their cards specifically is so high, even if I am paying them off each month.

So, does anyone know if it is 1% or just something over 0%

thanks

Re: Utilization percentage question

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 02:39:26 GMT

It is actually overall utilization at 9% or below but, not 0.

Are you sure the account from Chase is factored into your utilization?

Re: Utilization percentage question

PrettyPeacock — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 16:48:25 GMT

I am thinking the account from Chase is figured in. I have creditkarma as well as myfico and on creditkarma they show the amount of available credit and they have all my 4 open accounts plus a very old pier one they are still showing open that I had eons ago and this chase card for $30,200, so the total they are showing is $31,550. Right now I only have a $60 balance on my cap one card which is 30% for that card. But it is showing 0% utilization for all my credit. I know it will help my score to get a 1% utilization but to do that I would need $315 but that means that the cards I put a balance on are going to be showing a high utilization.

Which is why I was wondering if it actually had to be 1% or is the 1% just something that is rounded up to 1%. does that make sense?

Re: Utilization percentage question

dodfire — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 16:58:44 GMT

@PrettyPeacock wrote:
I am thinking the account from Chase is figured in. I have creditkarma as well as myfico and on creditkarma they show the amount of available credit and they have all my 4 open accounts plus a very old pier one they are still showing open that I had eons ago and this chase card for $30,200, so the total they are showing is $31,550. Right now I only have a $60 balance on my cap one card which is 30% for that card. But it is showing 0% utilization for all my credit. I know it will help my score to get a 1% utilization but to do that I would need $315 but that means that the cards I put a balance on are going to be showing a high utilization.
Which is why I was wondering if it actually had to be 1% or is the 1% just something that is rounded up to 1%. does that make sense?

Makes sense to me.....and I can tell you that for me I have a balance I am carrying that is far below 1% of my total available credit.

My credit report shows me to be at 1%.

I assume that the CRA does not report a fraction of a percent. It is just rounded up.

Re: Utilization percentage question

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 00:42:58 GMT

Yes, utilization is rounded up.

Re: Utilization percentage question

PrettyPeacock — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:10:07 GMT

Awesome, that is what I needed to hear. I am thrilled as I didn't want to start carrying a bunch of balances just to offset a cc I don't have anymore. But I certainly don't want to notify them that the info in wrong. Once it a while it is good to deal with wrong info that goes in our favor. Goodness knows it is hard enough to get them to rectify a problem that hurting our credit.

Cheers everyone and have a great week.