I don't tend to carry a lot of revolving credit, having gotten out of the habit of using credit cards after I used them poorly a decade back.
But I never closed my $100 JC Penney store credit account (and never used it), so it's been sitting there for a looooong time "active" with a $0 balance. (I honestly forgot I had it, but went ahead and ordered a cheap shirt online with it this morning, which I'll pay off immediately.)
Several months ago, I obtained a $2000 line of credit with Dell and used it to buy $1800 worth of laptop configured in a manner useful for my interests as a salaried computer programmer. The terms were "pay it off in 6 months, and no interest will have to be paid" so I made regular payments on time but paid off most of it in the last several weeks in payments ranging from $200 to a little over $500.
As of this coming Monday, the balance will be $0, but I went ahead and pulled all my scores this morning to see where I stood before the recent activity is posted. So the scores I pulled included a balance of $1,058 out of $2K total (recently increased to $3K spontaneously by the provider).
With that rather high utilization (and other contributing factors, of course), my scores are 663-649-648.
I ran a few simulations, and a couple were of particular interest.
I clicked the "best course of action" button, and it suggested paying down most/all of it over 24 months, resulting in an Equifax score (from 649) of 709-749.
Then I checked the result if I paid off all of it now (which is essentially what has happened over the last several weeks, not accounting for the additional $1K credit added by the lender), resulting in 669-709.
Then I noticed the option to see what would happen if I applied for and received a new card, and I punched in a value of $2K, resulting in a predicted score range of 659-689.
I figure the "best course of action" is higher because it assumes 2 more years of on-time payments and general credit-worthy behavior.
The second set of figures I assume boils down to simple reduction of utilization, partly because of the third set, which amounts to an over-all increase in score, despite the "new credit" ding.
This sound about right?
