I have a question, maybe a dumb question?

[jackg]

9% or less

[Anonymous]

Dropping from above 50% to below that number will give you a good boost.  Then dropping to below 30, then 10.  the thing is that while you in the progress of this drop, you will also be adding to the age of your accounts which counts for something as well.

[Anonymous]

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cheddar wrote:

Generally, your score does not improve with each incremental decrease in utilization, but it jumps when you cross certain utilization thresholds.

Where those thresholds lie depends on which scoring bucket you are in, and unfortunately the only way to know is through some experimentation / trial and error.

Having said that, 50% is considered a major utilization threshold, as is 10%.

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One of my cards just reported a balance of 50% versus 30% and I only lost 1 point on my score.

[Anonymous]

I thin kwe are probably looking more at overall uti.  I have had them report as high as 80% with no change.  However, when I only hqad one open card and the uti increased to 50% or greater, the difference showed.

In this case your 50% probably just had a slight impact on your overall uti.

[Anonymous]

MeganML84 wrote:

One of my cards just reported a balance of 50% versus 30% and I only lost 1 point on my score.

Brammy is right.  My comments refer to overall utilization, not utilization on one card.

For FICO purposes, both types of utilization are factored in, but obviously over 50% on one card is going to affect you much less than over 50% overall.

ETA:  Please don't take this personally, but I am always highly skeptical of posts that say "This is what happened and I only lost x points" or "My util went down and I gained x points.  There is so much happening on a report over any period of time, it is always difficult to pin down the exact cause of a point change.  OK, you lost one point for having one card report 50% instead of 30%.  Is that one point just the net result of everything else that happened on your report in the meantime?  Did an INQ age one year?  Six months?  Did a TL reach its one year anniversary?  Six months?  Two years?  Did a 30-day late just turn 2 years old?  Have you gone over every TL and payment history to see if there might be something else affecting your score at the same time?

Message Edited by cheddar on 01-23-2008 02:00 PM

Message Edited by cheddar on 01-23-2008 02:01 PM

[Anonymous]

Oh and keep in mind that a single card uti at 90% or better can hit you like a collection.  FICO does not like maxed out cards.

[Anonymous]

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cheddar wrote:

MeganML84 wrote:

One of my cards just reported a balance of 50% versus 30% and I only lost 1 point on my score.

ETA:  Please don't take this personally, but I am always highly skeptical of posts that say "This is what happened and I only lost x points" or "My util went down and I gained x points.  There is so much happening on a report over any period of time, it is always difficult to pin down the exact cause of a point change.  OK, you lost one point for having one card report 50% instead of 30%.  Is that one point just the net result of everything else that happened on your report in the meantime?  Did an INQ age one year?  Six months?  Did a TL reach its one year anniversary?  Six months?  Two years?  Did a 30-day late just turn 2 years old?  Have you gone over every TL and payment history to see if there might be something else affecting your score at the same time?

Message Edited by cheddar on 01-23-2008 02:00 PM

Message Edited by cheddar on 01-23-2008 02:01 PM

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Not taking it personally, but I do feel I should respond.

I do not have that much going on in my reports that I do not know what is happening each day. I pull my three reports daily and know when every balance changes, inq ages, account ages, etc. I have been on these forums long enough to know what is causing my score changes, and more importantly, than to post an "x increase in score because of y action" if I wasn't 90% sure it was that action.

Obviously, NONE of us will ever know what exactly impacts the Fico scoring model and in what way, but IMO for someone like myself that does consider all aspects of my report--if I view my report one day and then view it the next and only one thing has changed/aged/fell off/whatever the case may be, it is safe to assume that change in report is what warranted the score change provided I have not been re-bucketed.

As the reader it is your responsibility to interpret the info on these boards for what it may or may not be worth, but I do not think it is fair to discount my comment as if I was not aware of all the changing aspects of my credit report.

[Anonymous]

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MeganML84 wrote:

Not taking it personally, but I do feel I should respond.

I do not have that much going on in my reports that I do not know what is happening each day. I pull my three reports daily and know when every balance changes, inq ages, account ages, etc. I have been on these forums long enough to know what is causing my score changes, and more importantly, than to post an "x increase in score because of y action" if I wasn't 90% sure it was that action.

Obviously, NONE of us will ever know what exactly impacts the Fico scoring model and in what way, but IMO for someone like myself that does consider all aspects of my report--if I view my report one day and then view it the next and only one thing has changed/aged/fell off/whatever the case may be, it is safe to assume that change in report is what warranted the score change provided I have not been re-bucketed.

As the reader it is your responsibility to interpret the info on these boards for what it may or may not be worth, but I do not think it is fair to discount my comment as if I was not aware of all the changing aspects of my credit report.

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Megan,

Please know that I was not discounting your comment, and if it came across that way I do apologize for my poor choice of words.