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I am new to credit ( about 7 months ) and i have 3 cards which are my Amex BCE and Discover it both with a $1,000 limit + $400 on an amazon store card. I have a 715 Fico score which i believe is based on the Experian or TU ( I forgot)? Now i am planning on keeping a $660 Balance on my Discover card and charging about $20-30 a month on my Amex card. Will that hurt my score a lot ? I am going to be paying off my balance around $100-200 a month and i have 0% APR till September on my discover card .
Keeping a high balance on one card will hurt you.
For optimum credit scores you would want all revolving accounts but 1 to report a zero balance and the balance on that single card to be between 1 - 9% of your credit limit. But the nice thing about FICO scoring is that it does not have a category for past utilization. So carrying balances on more than one card or higher than optimum will not penalize you long term. Sometimes (like with 0% finance offers) it makes better money sense to let a balance ride for a while.
If the score you are quoting is a FICO score and it is with those balances reporting then you are doing great anyway. The only time you would need to be overly concerned about your optimal score is if you are trying for a credit product (like a mortgage or auto loan) that has different rates for different scores, or a certain score required as a minimum for consideration.
Now I am not advocating keeping high balances across accounts for a long period as most creditors do monitor your credit reports (especially with newer accounts) and multiple accounts with high balances can make them nervous and result in adverse action such as lowering credit limits or closing accounts. But maintaining utilization to optimize scoring is almost unique to the "credit junkies" that hang around forums like this. If you ask people at the next cocktail party what their revolving credit utilization is you will probably be met with a blank stare as they slowly back away from you.
As I was very curious to see the impact on a maxed out account I am about to let a 90% util report on my Discover card. Statement should cut today and reporting might be in a few days. Also my intention was to make sure not more than 50% of my accounts report with balances but this is impossible thanks to Amex that hit me with their AF the same time the statement got cut. So I will now have a maxed out card and over 50% of my accounts with balances. Curious to see the impact on my scores....oh well..so glad Fico has no memory and just hope no lender is getting spooked..LOL