CC UTIL question

[SoundoftheSuburbs]

Is it important to have each of your tradelines under 30% utilization or is it acceptable to have an overall utilization of below 30% with a card or two over that amount?

[Anonymous]

It's best to have your overall utilization under 8.9% and no card over 28.9%.

Some people practice the AZEO method where all cards report a balance of zero at statement time except one in which that card has a small balance. $15-20 or so.  Just don't let all cards report zero or fico will penalize you

I, personally, don't do AZEO...i let all my cards report a small balance, but each of my cards is under 7-8% as well as my overall utilization.

[HeavenOhio]

Just to clarify, "under 30%" means 28.9% or below. That's because FICO rounds all percentages up. 29.0000001% would round up to 30% and would no longer be "below 30%."

All cards at 28.9% or below indicates "responsible" borrowing. It's a great look when applying, and it generally puts one in FICO's second best scoring tier. Going over 28.9% on an individual card is fine from time to time. If you're doing it fairly frequently, you might want to consider requesting limit increases on those cards.

[Anonymous]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

If you're doing it fairly frequently, you might want to consider requesting limit increases on those cards.

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In the case of a Transactor I definitely agree with this.  In the case of a Revolver, though, CLIs are really a band-aid to the bigger underlying issue of less responsible use of credit (spending more than you're able/willing to pay).

[pinkandgrey]

Supposedly, the best is when your overall is under 9% and each individual is under 29%. However, I decided to stop getting too hung up on the numbers and just try to keep my balances as low as I can without driving myself crazy lol