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Sounds like a plan, i'll try for the Capital One at the beginnign of next month. Thanks for the insight Darrell.
@RKintaudi wrote:So you recommend that I take the $3,000 credit card off from RC Willey Furniture and immediately max out on it? As I would be purchasing $2993 worth of furniture. That would be the case if I took the offer. I've read that the weight of credit utilization is much greater than hard inquries.
No i would not recommend that at all. I didnt know you would be charging the 2993 if you had taken it. You def made the right choice in not taking that offer being you would have had to max it out. Your right it would have def hit your score hard and not in a good way,
@RKintaudi wrote:Sounds like a plan, i'll try for the Capital One at the beginnign of next month. Thanks for the insight Darrell.
Your welcome .. Good luck and let us know how it goes for you with capital one. There is ways to get good increases from them using the eo email after you have had the card for awhile. I recommend the Quick silver for the 1.5% cash back.
@RKintaudi wrote:Hey All,
I'm new to these forums after lurking in the weeds and reading posts by others. I'm 21 and just recently graduated from CSUF in California. Now residing in Utah.
My question is, what is an optimal credit card utilization ratio? Currently, my Experian credit score is 691 as of my last check a week ago. I'm considering doing the 3-branch thing if I can fit it into my budget. I'm nearly maxed out on my $900 CL BofA Cash Rewards card due to me having emergencies in school last semester. I would like to get it down to around about a $100 balance by the end of december. Additionally, I have a GO GE Capital card that I really didn't want to get, but I guess i'm stuck with it. Anyway, I'm hearing that 25% is a good utilization ratio if the balance is paid off every month before the statement close date. Do you guys agree?
Lastly, when should I consider increasing my credit limit with BofA?
Thanks.
First, congrats on graduating from Fullerton! Utah can definitely be a big culture change from SoCal (I have many friends currently trying to escape Brigham City), but it's a beautiful place.
Ideal UTIL is between 1% and 10% on all CCs, preferable with <50% of you CCs reporting a balance. So your BofA should report between $9 and $90 monthly and your GO GE Capital would have a 0 balance, ideally.
As for the RC Willey offer, it would only make sense to take it if you decided not to apply for more credit for a long time. The 18 month 0% financing is good, but it would hurt your UTIL for a while.
How long have you had your two CCs?
I've had my BofA card for about 15 months now, and my GO GE Capital card for about 2 months. I passed on the RC Willey offer, it's a simple financing plan with no credit involved, besides the inquiry. As mentioned earlier, I want to pay off that balance I have with BofA and Go GE Capital at the end of the month to show zero balances in both accounts. Subsequently, I would like to apply for Capital One card in early December.
@RKintaudi wrote:I've had my BofA card for about 15 months now, and my GO GE Capital card for about 2 months. I passed on the RC Willey offer, it's a simple financing plan with no credit involved, besides the inquiry. As mentioned earlier, I want to pay off that balance I have with BofA and Go GE Capital at the end of the month to show zero balances in both accounts. Subsequently, I would like to apply for Capital One card in early December.
You'll probably still have the new account ding from Go GE Capital for at least another 4 months. I'd recommend working the UTIL down on BofA and going for a CLI with them down the road. You'll definitely be able to get new credit with better terms with your BofA showing better UTIL and with the GE TL aging a bit more.
I agree, get the utilization down before it reports. I went on a bit of an app/CLI spree and was succesful but its taking longer to report cause i did a couple of balance transfers as well. my Chase card reported fast ! But my NFCU cards is slowwwwwwwwww. I super mistimed what i was wanting to do because i got all excited. But end result will be about 8% Utilization over all. Just made me miss my goal by 3 weeks LOL If i had just paid the dang things off, then my score would have jumped quicker.
Always remember, low utilization is the initial key on credit cards. Credit cards look at inquiries more than any other credit revenue that I have seen. They do ding your score but not as bad as high utilization.
@RKintaudi wrote:So the whole 25% total utilzation ratio was just another theory, eh? I got approved for a $3,000 CL card from RC Willey here in Utah, as I'm buying new furniture, however, I declined that as I'd rather have more freedom to use credit with that much of a limit. Should I apply now for a newer card or wait until my BofA card is down to 9% of the balance?
It depends on what your goals are. In your case, 1-9% on one card (only) is best to boost scores. But if you are looking for a CLI or new TL some (not all) CCCs want to see that you have used more of your available limit and handled it well.
+1