topic Re: Lower credit balances vs paying off in General Credit Topics

Lower credit balances vs paying off

Bryan43016 — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 03:19:56 GMT

Which would increase my credit score more getting a couple of credit card balances under 30% utilization or paying 1 card off complete?

Re: Lower credit balances vs paying off

Horseshoez — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 03:29:39 GMT

@Bryan43016 wrote:
Which would increase my credit score more getting a couple of credit card balances under 30% utilization or paying 1 card off complete?

It would depend upon your full list of credit cards and what their balances are; if you care to share all of your cards and their balances, then the collective here can offer up an opinion on what your best course of action could be.

Re: Lower credit balances vs paying off

SouthJamaica — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:31:49 GMT

@Bryan43016 wrote:
Which would increase my credit score more getting a couple of credit card balances under 30% utilization or paying 1 card off complete?

Getting a couple down to 28 or 29%. Definitely.

Re: Lower credit balances vs paying off

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 15:29:40 GMT

As @Horseshoez says, it depends on status of your other cards and current utilization of these cards.

If you have 5 total cards and all cards are at 50% utilization, taking 2 of 5 to 25% utilization may not help score. However, taking 1 to $0 so only 4 of 5 report balances may boost score.

Conversely, if the 2 cards in question had UTs at 50% and the other 3 cards were at 25% UT, then taking the remaining 2 cards to 25% would definitely help more than paying one to $0 - except perhaps on EQ score 5.