I have been on the forums for a while and have used a lot of the tips and tricks to help rebuild my credit profile. I truly appreciate all of the help. 
I have been able to clean up my reports and recently obtained some new cards along with a car loan. I see a lot of information about utilization but I am a bit confused. I currently do not have any balances on the cards. Being specific to my situation with the credit limits I have, my question is on how I can best maximize my scores with utilization.
Can someone share their thoughts on what type of utilization I should have for individual cards and overall?
Credit Union Unsecured - 6K CL
Orchard Bank Secured - 1K CL
Jared's - 5,500 - CL
Honda Financing- 10k (just opened this month)
@Anonymous wrote:I have been on the forums for a while and have used a lot of the tips and tricks to help rebuild my credit profile. I truly appreciate all of the help.
I have been able to clean up my reports and recently obtained some new cards along with a car loan. I see a lot of information about utilization but I am a bit confused. I currently do not have any balances on the cards. Being specific to my situation with the credit limits I have, my question is on how I can best maximize my scores with utilization.
Can someone share their thoughts on what type of utilization I should have for individual cards and overall?
Credit Union Unsecured - 6K CL
Orchard Bank Secured - 1K CL
Jared's - 5,500 - CL
Honda Financing- 10k (just opened this month)
The term utilization usually refers to revolving credit accounts. Installment loan utilization is scored but is such a tiny part of scoring that it can virtually be ignored. FICO scores both overall utilization, individual account utilization, and the number of accounts reporting balances at any one time.
Everyone's situation is different and there is no one size fits all approach to this but what seems to work well for most people is to have only one of their cards report a small (<9% of it's credit limit) balance each month and then pay in full before the due date. You can use it as much as you want during the month but what's important is the reported balance because for most cards whatever is reported on the monthly statement is what is used to calculate utilization for the month.
You might have to play around with the percentages for a few months to see what works best for you. Some people say that 1-3% utilization helps the most. For others it might be 5-9%. As I said it's not one size fits all.
On any other cards always try and have them report a zero balance each month. That doesn't mean you can't use them just make sure that the desired zero balance on these accounts is achieved several days before their statements post.
From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".