topic Score simulator in Rebuilding Your Credit

Score simulator

Fester82 — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:48:08 GMT

I just want to apologize at first I'm not sure if this post should go in this one or understanding my FICO score. But to get to the point I was playing around with the simulator cuz in a couple months I'm getting a inheritance and I want to pay off my debt. By paying off all my debt I don't get that much of a hit if I do it all at once but my score goes up even if I stretch it out over a year.

I was debating if I should just pay it off all at once and see if myself an interest or get the maximum my FICO score and stretch out the payments over a year. Thank you for your help

Re: Score simulator

GZG — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:04:51 GMT

@Fester82 wrote:
I just want to apologize at first I'm not sure if this post should go in this one or understanding my FICO score. But to get to the point I was playing around with the simulator cuz in a couple months I'm getting a inheritance and I want to pay off my debt. By paying off all my debt I don't get that much of a hit if I do it all at once but my score goes up even if I stretch it out over a year.

I was debating if I should just pay it off all at once and see if myself an interest or get the maximum my FICO score and stretch out the payments over a year. Thank you for your help

there is no FICO score benefit for streching out payments over time

pay off all of your balances, in full and stop paying interest

Re: Score simulator

pizzadude — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:29:12 GMT

How much interest are you paying monthly on the balances ? Most FICO scoring models don't take historical revolving utilization into account, so you'd likely be better off paying them all down at once both from a financial and score perspective.

To maximize your score you should go with the AZEO method and leave a very small balance reporting on one of your cards.

Re: Score simulator

Fester82 — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 18:26:25 GMT

Thank you

Re: Score simulator

KatzNDawgs — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 23:02:00 GMT

Check the score increase if you just let your profile age 1 yr - that is likely a portion of the points involved. Score change based on utilization has no basis on timing, but decrease in util + aging a file can *look* bigger, when part of that is just due to age itself.