@eanderson23 wrote:Aghhhh! My husband and I do not use credit cards (as of this summer, his credit score was over 800, mine around 740). We purchased a hot tub with a 60 month 0 interest special through the hot tub store via Wells Fargo. I maxed out my card balance (about $5600) and then about $10,000 onto my husbands card. We set the auto payments so the cards are paid off before the 60 months. However, because of maxing my only open credit card, my creditplummatedd to 639! (via Mint score, I haven't ran a full report since using card) Please please help! Do I pay it off completely? Just double my payments? How can I fix this?? I had absolutely NO IDEA that this would impact my score so badly.
There is a massive penalty for having a card above 89% usage, so as you pay it off, your score will increase. Also another penalty for only having one card and not a minimum of three, so double whammy there.
But if you do pay it off, the score will go back to what it was at before, for what it's worth.
The score from Mint is a vantage score, so I would consider getting your FICO score from here myFICO (free plan or paid) and from Experian.com (Free plan or paid plan) to see where you actually stand in terms of your FICO credit score.
The other risk for having a card at such high utilization is that other lenders might see you as being underwater, and might take action against your accounts. balance chasing.
I might personally pay off 12% of the card so you're not maxing out the card and then enjoy the 0% interest. And use that money to invest/save while taking advantage of the 0% interest.
Unless you're trying to apply for credit sometime in the near future.
Single card you are getting hit with max individual utilization (very small penalty) and max aggregate utilization (very large penalty).
Short of paying it down aggressively or opening up more credit cards which isn't really the right time with the current score there isn't a lot you can do about it.
On the flip side unless you need your credit for something right now, don't sweat it. Also I don't know what score Mint provides it may just be an educational one, but maxing out aggregate utilization is a big penalty up to around 100 points on a pretty file.
I would just pay it down under 89% so the hit will be lessened, and more importantly, to not spook other creditors.
@eanderson23 wrote:Aghhh! My husband and I do not use credit cards (as of this summer, his credit score was over 800, mine around 740). We purchased a hot tub with a 60 month 0 interest special through the hot tub store via Wells Fargo. I maxed out my card balance (about $5600) and then about $10,000 onto my husbands card. We set the auto payments so the cards are paid off before the 60 months. However, because of maxing my only open credit card, my credit plummated to 639! (via Mint score, I haven't ran a full report since using card) Please please help! Do I pay it off completely? Just double my payments? How can I fix this?? I had absolutely NO IDEA that this would impact my score so badly.
If you pay the balance down to 28% of the limit, you'll remove any penalty.
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@eanderson23 wrote:Aghhh! My husband and I do not use credit cards (as of this summer, his credit score was over 800, mine around 740). We purchased a hot tub with a 60 month 0 interest special through the hot tub store via Wells Fargo. I maxed out my card balance (about $5600) and then about $10,000 onto my husbands card. We set the auto payments so the cards are paid off before the 60 months. However, because of maxing my only open credit card, my credit plummated to 639! (via Mint score, I haven't ran a full report since using card) Please please help! Do I pay it off completely? Just double my payments? How can I fix this?? I had absolutely NO IDEA that this would impact my score so badly.
If you pay the balance down to 28% of the limit, you'll remove any penalty.
That maybe is a limit on single tradeline utilization, maybe, but there's still the 9% line for aggregate in the single tradeline case.
FWIW the single tradeline was north of like 63% personally, never did nail that down.