I would say keep it to one or two cards. You don't want too many cards with balances.
@Gunnar419 wrote:
@thom02099 wrote:Just my 2 cents worth, but if I were you, I wouldn't let that one card util go up to 70%. If there's a means to spread it around so that it's kept under 50%, or better yet, under 30%, that's what I would do. I also wouldn't worry too much about a score drop unless you're planning to apply for more credit any time soon. If you are, then that's a whole 'nuther issue. BUT...even with a score drop to the 720+ range, you'd still likely get good rates if you DID need to apply for credit.
Since you bought a fixer house for 4 figures, I presume you DIDN'T get any sort of mortgage or loan on the purchase? If not, is a loan of some sort a possibility, so you don't have to carry balances on credit cards? Perhaps a personal loan or some sort of home improvement loan? They would be fixed installments and would have a lesser impact on your score, if that's something you could consider.
Thanks, guys! Yeah, I probably worry too much about my score, since I don't have any plan to apply for new credit or even ask for CLI's any time soon.
And you're right thom, I didn't get a mortgage. It was a cash only sale. In fact, I paid for about half of the house with credit cards. I hadn't even considered a personal loan because the way I structured it, I'm only paying 0% to 2.99% on the credit cards. If having util that high starts causing me problems, a personal loan is something I might consider, but I have a feeling a banker would laugh me out of her office right now. I'm pretty strapped despite my good credit.
My instincts also agree that I should avoid running any card up to 70%, but I'm wondering WHY that's a bad idea. It FEELS like a bad idea, but I know for sure that letting too many cards report a balance is a bad idea, and I don't have any experience with what happens when I let one card to go 70%.
That's the salient detail honestly 
.
Anecdotally reported (YMMV), some lenders may get worried if they see a tradeline approaching max utilization for an extended period, especially if they don't see enough payments across your tradelines.
In this case though I think you're worried for no reason; credit cards are designed for short-term float, the chances of AA are vanishingly unlikely unless you start missing payments, and if you continue to make progress on paying them down, the odds are completely in your favor especially in today's economy. Incidents of AA were much higher a few years ago for seemingly ridiculous things at times, I'm not convinced we've turned the corner yet in the economy but things are markedly improved in the lending market than they were 2+ years ago.
There have been situations where I've let A, not a number of my cards reach 80% util, have never faced AA and the dip in my FICO recovers after the balance is paid down. Creditors understand there are situations when carrying a balance is necessary. It's when your overall balances begin to creep up over an extended period of time that creditors usually might begin to get alarmed. But as we all know, there is no hard fast rule in the credit game....
@Gunnar419 wrote:I know the MyFico mantra about keeping all cards at zero except one, which should report less than 9%.
I was there a few months ago.
Now, because I grabbed the opportunity to buy a fixer house for four figures, and because I need to spend a few thousand to make the house livable again, I've run my cards back up (over 20%) and may hit 25% or 30% utilization before I'm done. I won't be able to pay these balances off quickly. I will be able to make payments that are more than minimum.
My question is if I'm going to be running those levels of utilization is it better to keep it all on one or two cards or spread it around?
My instinct is to keep it all on two cards while letting the rest (5 others) report zero. But this will mean that one of the two cards is at about 27% and that another may be as much as 70%. The card carrying the higher util is already known to be balance friendly, but I've never gone above 50% on it.
My scores have already dropped from the 770-780 range to 730-740 with only about half of the utilization showing yet. I'm concerned about two things. First is I don't want to be punished by any one ccc for carrying too high a balance. Second is I don't want my scores to drop below 700.
Given that I'm going to be stuck with high util for a while, what's the best way to balance it to avoid a serious score drop or AA from cccs?
Thank you.
I've read that 30% is as high as you should go on any particular card, so I suppose going up to that point and stopping and starting on another card is better than going to, for example, 50% or even higher on any one card.
