Allow balances to report on cards or not.

Anonymous · ‎02-18-2016

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?

kdm31091 · ‎02-18-2016

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.

Anonymous · ‎02-18-2016

^^^^ Yes.

Anonymous · ‎02-18-2016

@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

redpat · ‎02-18-2016

+1 what kmd said.

Welcome back, lol.

Personal Cards: Amex Delta Res | CSR | Citi AA Exec | Citi Strata Premier Business Cards: Ink+ | Amex BBP

Kevin86475391 · ‎02-18-2016

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.

dragontears · ‎02-18-2016

@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.

Anonymous · ‎02-18-2016

@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

Anonymous · ‎02-18-2016

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.

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

NRB525 · ‎02-18-2016

@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).