CS utilization question

[Anonymous]

You really need to get your individual card UTIL's under 50% ASAP and then under 35%. I wouldn't worry too much about bring accounts to 0% unless it is easy to do. If so then by all means do. Once under 35% you want to focus on killing accounts off until you only have one account with higher UTIL (preferably) and then:

Optimal credit utilization for FICO scoring purposes is:

• Total revolving utilization > 0 and <= 9%, the lower the better, and
• Reporting a balance on less than half of your revolving TL's, and
• Reporting a balance on half or less of all TL's.

Anyway you get there is fair game. You only need have one revolving TL report a balance.

[Anonymous]

So where would a 9% rate HELOC at 99% util fit into the whole scenario.  I'm 7 years into a 15 yr. mortgage + the HELOC all secured by the house with WF (total secured owed is not upside down!) plus the CC accounts.  My plan was to keep the HELOC high since it's lower interest than the cards and an interest only auto payment so as to payoff the CC faster.  In 3 years when it's up I was hoping to have a better score and only use the HELOC for credit (other than quarterly maintenance use to keep the CC's happy & open) since it has checks, BT a VISA card and online transfers in one click to any of my other WF products.

[Anonymous]

HELOC's may or may not be included in your revolving UTIL based the amount of the CL and the model used by the CRB.