what is considering too high on revolving balances?

[Anonymous]

I'm using 1,300 of 10K. Is this really considered too high? 

This is reported every month. 

[Anonymous]

anything under 30% is best....but I put all my debt on one big credit line card and it's 50% of that card and my credit actually went up.....but the rule of thumb is under 30%.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm using 1,300 of 10K. Is this really considered too high? 

This is reported every month. 

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Too high in terms of what?  If you're talking FICO scoring, anything over 9% (which you are) is going to bring your score down.  Is it a huge amount?  Probably not, maybe 15-25 points.  The next threshold is at 29%, so your score won't change at all with your utilization going up from where you are now to 28%, say.  Silimlarly, it won't go up at all until you get below 9%.  That's all from a scoring perspective.

Scoring aside, if you're talking about a manual review where a human being looks at your utilization and draws his or her own conclusion, as long as you are below that second threshold at 29% it's rare that anyone would be adversely looked upon.  Of course being in single-digit utilization is always going to be ideal, but anything up to 29% IMO won't adversely turn any heads.

[Anonymous]

I understood the question as balance on a card...

[Anonymous]

Great point, Happy.

OP, is this your only card?  If not, then going over 8.99% will cause you a score drop, as BBS observes.

If it isn't, then you have more legroom.  As long as you keep your total utilization (all credit limits combined) under 9%, then the individual utilization (one card considered by itself) can be much higher with no penalty.  As Happy writes, < 29% is fine for any particular card.  Indeed, some people experience no score drop with an individual util as high as 48%.

Either way, all penalties can be erased the next month by just paying down your cards.  So it's not something to worry about.

[CramEiko]

Good question. I usually run everything @ 0% each month. Every now and then I get caught with a low balance. Like last month I got caught with a $51 balance on a card with $15k trade line and my score went down by a few points. So sensitive the credit bureau's are.... lol

[Anonymous]

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@CramEiko wrote:

@Anonymous question. I usually run everything @ 0% each month. Every now and then I get caught with a low balance. Like last month I got caught with a $51 balance on a card with $15k trade line and my score went down by a few points. So sensitive the credit bureau's are.... lol

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Are you saying that you usually have all revolving accounts reporting $0, and that last month you had one card report with a small positive balance -- and this caused your score to go down?

All cards at $0 involves a substantial score penalty (about 20 points) so allowing one card to report a small positive balance should have caused your score to go up (by 15-20 points).  Certainly not down.

[DaveInAZ]

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@CramEiko wrote:

@Anonymous question. I usually run everything @ 0% each month. Every now and then I get caught with a low balance. Like last month I got caught with a $51 balance on a card with $15k trade line and my score went down by a few points. So sensitive the credit bureau's are.... lol

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Is that a Vantage credit score, as in from Credit Karma? My Vantage score goes up & down like the wind with the smallest changes. My Fico scores remain very constant, changing only with major changes like a new account.

[Anonymous]

It would be impossible for a $51 balance on a $15k limit account to cause a FICO score to drop.  Depending on what the balance was prior to it being $51, your FICO score could have remained the same or increased.  These are the only 2 things that could have happened.

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm using 1,300 of 10K. Is this really considered too high? 

This is reported every month. 

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I'm going to take a different approach to answering this.

It's too high of a balance if you can't pay it off, regardless of its utilization percent on your report. All the FICO score in the world doesn't mean a thing if you're saddled with more debt than you can afford.

If you can clear it tomorrow but spend that much every month as a matter of course, then the utilization percentages discussed already become relevant to maintain a good score.