Utilization & score question...

[morganirish]

For a long time I only had one cc. With a 300. limit and a few lates.   Whenever I let a balance report my score would drop, usually by a couple of points.  But, now that I have 5, and almost all derogs removed, I let a few bucks report and my score doesn't change, up or down.   just my experience so far. 

[haulingthescoreup]

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morganirish wrote:
For a long time I only had one cc. With a 300. limit and a few lates.   Whenever I let a balance report my score would drop, usually by a couple of points.  But, now that I have 5, and almost all derogs removed, I let a few bucks report and my score doesn't change, up or down.   just my experience so far. 

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A-ha! A report from the trenches.

So in at least one case, when you only have one card, It's better to have a $0 balance. The 100% usage ding seems worse than the no-cards-with-balances ding.

morganirish, when you let balances report on the $300 card, how much were they typically? Because that will be the next question, of course --was it too high of a util showing, or any balance at all.

[morganirish]

  Sometimes yes, the util. was way to high, and my score would drop more, but other times it would report 5 or 10 dollars and it would still drop, though not as much.  But everytime I let a 0 bal. report my score went up a little.  Even now I have 5 cc, and I let very little report.  My util now stays between 1 and 6 % .   And my cs has been the same for a couple of months. 

[haulingthescoreup]

Thank you!

While this might not be true across the board, depending on age, baddies, etc., it's a very clear indication that for some folks with one card, it's better to have it report $0 than some token amount.

[BungalowMo]

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@MarineVietVet wrote:

@BungalowMo wrote:

Actually, you want to pay BEFORE the statement cuts.  On 99% of cc accts, the balance at statement CUT is what is reported to the CRA's.

That is true if you want a zero balance to report. I was referring to a small balance reporting and being paid before the due date to avoid any finance charges. I could explained it a little better.  

And the discussion continues whether those with only one CC get a bigger boost to their score by reporting a zero balance each month as opposed to a small amount of 1-9%. 

I'm with haulingthescoreup. Someone needs to volunteer!!!

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I see what you're saying now.  And as thrasher mentioned...if this is their onlycard...having a small bal post might help the score rather than hurt.

Edit.....then I read the rest of the thread!!!    Leave it to me to jump the gun!!!!

Message Edited by BungalowMo on 11-20-2009 04:56 PM

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone...

UPDATE

so my utilization went down from around 98% with one card to 5% and i saw a score increase of 32 points. i have a 564

[haulingthescoreup]

Ahhh... --that's pretty sweet! Happy Thanksgiving!

[Jazzzy]

Congratulations army guy...!!!

Continue to use your cards responsibly and let time do its work.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hey everyone...

UPDATE

so my utilization went down from around 98% with one card to 5% and i saw a score increase of 32 points. i have a 564

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That's great, armyguy90!

And thanks for the update.  A lot of times people ask questions on this forum, they're answered at length, and then we don't hear what the outcome was (which isn't a big deal, but it's nice to know what happened).