I'm committed to the garden for a bit, deciding on whether to buy house will do that to you.
Before I hopped in I had a little mini app spree to get a few more of the cards I wanted to flesh out my wallet, knowing it might be awhile before I app for anything else. Took the HP hits, shrugged off the pain of watching my score drop, and have just been observing.
Since several of the cards are 0% APR for the first 12mos I decided to let some balances ride through Christmas, slowly paying them down while I PIF my "regular" cards.
My score had stabilized at 761 since my spree in Sep and I figured I should start seeing a rebound sometime soon. So this month I'm still carrying balances on three cards but I PIF'd the rest. I PIF'd a large balance off one of my cards on the 20th and on the 24th was rewarded with a MyFico alert that my score had jumped to 780.
Pretty cool! I charged a small amount on the same card but didn't pay it before the statement settled on the 27th(I had the dates wrong on my calender), instead PIFing again on the 29th. Today MyFico alerts me that my score has dropped back to 761 because of the new balance.
It seems crazy that there'd be a 19pt drop because of that, but the notes cite the changes. I might try PIFing the rest of the cards, one at a time over three or four week gaps to see what that does and find out if the drop was from carrying four balances versus three.
Was wondering if anyone else has seen changes like that or if maybe it was some kind of a hiccup in the monitoring?
@Joebunaga wrote:I'm committed to the garden for a bit, deciding on whether to buy house will do that to you.
Before I hopped in I had a little mini app spree to get a few more of the cards I wanted to flesh out my wallet, knowing it might be awhile before I app for anything else. Took the HP hits, shrugged off the pain of watching my score drop, and have just been observing.
Since several of the cards are 0% APR for the first 12mos I decided to let some balances ride through Christmas, slowly paying them down while I PIF my "regular" cards.
My score had stabilized at 761 since my spree in Sep and I figured I should start seeing a rebound sometime soon. So this month I'm still carrying balances on three cards but I PIF'd the rest. I PIF'd a large balance off one of my cards on the 20th and on the 24th was rewarded with a MyFico alert that my score had jumped to 780.
Pretty cool! I charged a small amount on the same card but didn't pay it before the statement settled on the 27th(I had the dates wrong on my calender), instead PIFing again on the 29th. Today MyFico alerts me that my score has dropped back to 761 because of the new balance.
It seems crazy that there'd be a 19pt drop because of that, but the notes cite the changes. I might try PIFing the rest of the cards, one at a time over three or four week gaps to see what that does and find out if the drop was from carrying four balances versus three.
Was wondering if anyone else has seen changes like that or if maybe it was some kind of a hiccup in the monitoring?
How many total cards? How many of those have balances reporting to your CRs?
Eight cards total,
4 reporting balances.
BAD!!! 
You should only show one to three of eight to reduce/maximize the point scoring. You're fifty percent, and that's a dinger.
I figured since my overall util was low it wouldn't factor in as much, but live and learn. Thanks for the info.
Going high on individual card utilization...
Going high on number of cards reporting...
Going high on overall utilization...
Doesn't really matter if you're not seeking new cards/loans, and your current balances aren't out of control.