topic dropping utilization in General Credit Topics

dropping utilization

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:52:26 GMT

how much of an increase as anyone experienced when they started cutting back on the utilization of their credit cards?

Re: dropping utilization

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:43:54 GMT

nfg, I experienced a 150 point increase in my scores after I brought my utils down.

In March, 2007 my TU score was 521. In July it was 671. So the system, she really does work. And these were PFICO scores. Not FAKO.

I PIF'd 4 out of my 6 cc's every month for 5 months, while still paying down the utils on the other 2.

Re: dropping utilization

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:49:44 GMT

Thank you, that is great news!

Re: dropping utilization

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:03:40 GMT

I have 3 cc's that I actively use and a 4th one that is on it's way in the mail. The three I have are pretty much maxed out and the 4th is a rebuilder card, probably a 300 dollar limit with 150 dollars in fees already on it, what do you think is my best course of action to bring my scores up the fastest?

Message Edited by nfg on 11-09-2007 01:03 PM

Re: dropping utilization

fused — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:03:32 GMT

nfg wrote:

I have 2 cc's that I actively use and a 3rd one that is on it's way in the mail. The two I have are pretty much maxed out and the 3rd is a rebuilder card, probably a 300 dollar limit with 150 dollars in fees already on it, what do you think is my best course of action to bring my scores up the fastest?

What are your current scores? What are the CLs and balances on these cards (include the CL on the new one)? What other bad stuff is on your reports and how old are they? Maybe we can ballpark your scores.

Re: dropping utilization

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:00:25 GMT

This is what I did. I took all my cc's out of my wallet, put them in an envelope and put them in my "sock" drawer.

I did not use any of them for 2 months, while paying off or down all the balances. I had to go to the bank much more often, but I felt good knowing I wasn't putting any more debt on the card, while getting down my balances, lowering my utilizations, and raising my scores.

I also took out money out of savings to pif the 4 of 6 cards.

When ever I buy anything with a cc now, I stop and think which card has the lowest balance and the highest limit. On every, single purchase. Including a cup of coffee and a donut. I also make an "interim" payment on every card, between statements, AND make a final payment 7 days before due date.

Hope that helps

Hopefully I'll know soon...

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:21:43 GMT

Getting ready for that first mortgage. After years of waiting for my credit to get better, I finally pulled my reports last week. Surprisingly they weren't too bad (TU687, EQ663, EX648). The only change I'll have is lowering utilization (was 41%) down to 3-5%, and a tiny bit of ageing. Paid off all of the cards on Monday (then put $20-$60 back on each), and now I'm just waiting for my EQ score to be updated.

I also subscribed to myFICO Scorewatch and Equifax Scorewatch to see if one updates sooner/more complete than the other.

I'll update as soon as I see some change!

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

haulingthescoreup — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:25:26 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I also subscribed to myFICO Scorewatch and Equifax Scorewatch to see if one updates sooner/more complete than the other.

I'll update as soon as I see some change!

Hi, WAFICOwatcher--I appreciate your willingness to be a guinea pig for the rest of us!

When you get your Scorewatch reports from both sites, is the report (not score) from EQ more complete than the one from myFICO? Does it have soft inquiries at the end (the ones that don't count against you), and the actual date of the month, not just month/ year, that a creditor updates its info? Thanks for any "compare and contrast" that you can share!

edit: oops, meant to say, good luck on that first mortgage! We look forward to welcoming you to the ranks of happy homeowners, heh heh heh...

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 11-09-2007 05:25 PM

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

smallfry — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:21:31 GMT

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I also subscribed to myFICO Scorewatch and Equifax Scorewatch to see if one updates sooner/more complete than the other.

I'll update as soon as I see some change!
Hi, WAFICOwatcher--I appreciate your willingness to be a guinea pig for the rest of us!

When you get your Scorewatch reports from both sites, is the report (not score) from EQ more complete than the one from myFICO? Does it have soft inquiries at the end (the ones that don't count against you), and the actual date of the month, not just month/ year, that a creditor updates its info? Thanks for any "compare and contrast" that you can share!

edit: oops, meant to say, good luck on that first mortgage! We look forward to welcoming you to the ranks of happy homeowners, heh heh heh...

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 11-09-2007 05:25 PM

The EQ generated report shows your soft pulls and has more detail as far as payment history. You can take a one month flyer for 7 bucks if you use the discount from the Coastal Credit Union website. This will allow you to view an updated EQ report every 24 hours and 1 minute. Equifax calls this product Credit Watch Gold.

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

haulingthescoreup — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:25:30 GMT

@smallfry wrote:
The EQ generated report shows your soft pulls and has more detail as far as payment history. You can take a one month flyer for 7 bucks if you use the discount from the Coastal Credit Union website. This will allow you to view an updated EQ report every 24 hours and 1 minute. Equifax calls this product Credit Watch Gold.

Whoa, no sh*t?? daily EQ pulls?? OK, I need to find my teeth and put them back in!

Any minuses to the EQ version?

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

smallfry — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 04:28:38 GMT

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@smallfry wrote:
The EQ generated report shows your soft pulls and has more detail as far as payment history. You can take a one month flyer for 7 bucks if you use the discount from the Coastal Credit Union website. This will allow you to view an updated EQ report every 24 hours and 1 minute. Equifax calls this product Credit Watch Gold.
Whoa, no sh*t?? daily EQ pulls?? OK, I need to find my teeth and put them back in!

Any minuses to the EQ version?

None at all. You'll find that any creditors that pulled Equifax for your applications who approved you do account reviews periodically. Other than that it is basically the same thing you get at Truecredit or one of the other resellers. This whole business of pulling credit reports is problematic. If you pull Equifax too often you run the risk of a split file. If you don't pull the reports how do you know if you are the victim of ID theft? Unless you are adding accounts or radically reducing or increasing your utilization of available credit it is really a waste of time and money to pull your reports. FICO's TU product doesn't work either. I signed up for weekly emails and just got my first after six weeks. It claimed there were no changes to my TU when I had added an inquiry and an account to that report. The entire reporting system needs to be revamped. There really needs to be only 1 agency that collects data.

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 07:20:20 GMT

As smallfry indicated, the Equifax report is much more detailed. Soft pulls show up (including the day that the pull was done). The account information displayed is more detailed, including date opened, date reported, date of last payment, scheduled payment amount (or minimum payment), actual payment, high credit, credit limit, and balance. The dates are only MM/YY format though.

What's nice is they show last date reported for each account on the summary page. Makes it easy to see who's reporting and when.

What's odd is that all of my current accounts reported last month, but for some reason both my HSBC cards (HSBC and Household) last reported in September?

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:27:07 GMT

My HSBC accounts also have a last reporting from Sept. I thought that was weird but I had paid both of these cards off and thought maybe that was why.

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

haulingthescoreup — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 14:50:50 GMT

Some companies are slow or get behind in reporting. My Countrywide mortgage hasn't updated since September, either, but I think that is because they only have about 7 employees left nationwide.

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

smallfry — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:34:07 GMT

I get the feeling HSBC updates only 6 times per year.

Re: Hopefully I'll know soon...

jackg — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:05:18 GMT

Son of a gun, my HSBC account also did'nt report in September! Maybe they went to celebrate Oktoberfest?

Re: dropping utilization

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 01:52:51 GMT

thats my motto.. never ever be late..

I swear if I had to I would bounce a check before I 'd be late.

Re: dropping utilization

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:24:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

thats my motto.. never ever be late..
I swear if I had to I would bounce a check before I 'd be late.

And then you'd be dinged on Chexsystems!

Re: dropping utilization

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:04:03 GMT

FYI

if i did have to pay a bill in order to keep from being 30 days late I would defintely do so without hesitation.

The thing is that checksystems is only notified via the bank when a person is ABUSIVE. So ONE check will not do anything to jeopardize my relationship with checksystem...I know this well and no I would not have a ding on anything....just a bounced check fee that the bank will charge in which i will be very happy to pay in order to avoid being late on any of my bills. Between the ages of 19 and 25 when i didn't have a good job i learned to juggle everything in my favor...so now that i am able to afford my weight.. there is no need to...just stressing the importance of never being late...on a bill....7 years of a negative vs 30 dollar bank fee.....i know which is better for me...

Re: dropping utilization

haulingthescoreup — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:09:52 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

FYI
if i did have to pay a bill in order to keep from being 30 days late I would defintely do so without hesitation.
The thing is that checksystems is only notified via the bank when a person is ABUSIVE. So ONE check will not do anything to jeopardize my relationship with checksystem...I know this well and no I would not have a ding on anything....just a bounced check fee that the bank will charge in which i will be very happy to pay in order to avoid being late on any of my bills. Between the ages of 19 and 25 when i didn't have a good job i learned to juggle everything in my favor...so now that i am able to afford my weight.. there is no need to...just stressing the importance of never being late...on a bill....7 years of a negative vs 30 dollar bank fee.....i know which is better for me...

Didn't mean to offend --I was just pondering the intricacies of credit and personal finance.