Utilization question

[Anonymous]

So my secured cards will start coming in the mail shortly and I started small at only $500 limits. My question is lets say one month I put $400 on the card with a $500 limit. Obviously that will affect the utilization. But if I pay it down to 10% the day before the statement end date will the $400 dollar utilization hit my credit or will the 10% utilization hit my credit? I want to make sure I am staying on a strict path during this rebuild. I have also heard that it is BEST to have THREE revolving account cards. Is that correct? Should I keep all of them at 10% utilization? Thanks!

[tufa4311]

Two dates to take note of: statement cut date and statement due date. The balance is reported to the CRA's when the statement is cut, Interest begins on any balance left after the due date. Bring your balance down to less than 10% before the statement cut date, let that report, then PIF before the statement due date.

[Anonymous]

perfect. I assume this is information that the provider can give me? I am aware of due dates but have yet to hear of a cut date. Thanks for the heads up!

[Anonymous]

They can. One of my cards, the due date is the 17th, statement generates on the 22nd. one is the 8th for due, cust on the 14th. one of my cap one is due on the 20th, reports on the 23rd. Same for Merrickbank. you can just call and ask when your statement generates/closes. anyone with a brain stem can tell you(granetd it took several attempts to ask capital one, love the card, hate the rep's)

[tufa4311]

Sure, just call and ask or just log into your credit card account, go to the Statements page, and take a look when all the past statements where released, that's the cut date. If you are looking at the correct date it'll be same date each month (then just for fun log into your credit karma account, click on the credit report, go the the CC is question, and confirm that the "last reported" date is as expected -  it is usually one day after the statement date listed on your CC website.

[Anonymous]

I also have a utilization question so will pile on here.

I have seen mention of never going over 30% utilization at any time.  Is this in reference to credit available on all cards, combined?  I have one card that shows the highest balance ever reported at about 40% of the limit for that particular card, but well below 30% utilization of overall credit available.  I am curious if I need to try for a CLI on that card and whether or not I'm being dinged for that utilization percentage?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I also have a utilization question so will pile on here.

I have seen mention of never going over 30% utilization at any time.  Is this in reference to credit available on all cards, combined?  I have one card that shows the highest balance ever reported at about 40% of the limit for that particular card, but well below 30% utilization of overall credit available.  I am curious if I need to try for a CLI on that card and whether or not I'm being dinged for that utilization percentage?

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FICO scoring only looks at the last reported UTI%. For CLI purposes the lender is not going to worry about whether you ever used more than 30% of your credit, as long as it was paid back down quickly. I've gotten CLI's (2/15) on my Cap One cards even though they were at 90% for the entire time they existed prior to December 2014.