I have a feeling I'm in for a roller coaster of scores over the next week or two. I should have 3 new accounts being added to my profile and they're going to have pretty bad UTIL 
Good news is my two Cap1 cards are now $0 balance and my BBY Visa will go from %62 down to around %15 since I did BTs onto an FNBO and Freedom Flex card to get the %0 APR for a year. My Cap1 cards should update before the new accounts hit so I'm anticipating a quick spike in scores and then a rough drop when the new ones hit.
FNBO is going to update at around %83 UTIL and Freedom Flex will be around %80. It'll be nice saving interest and helping pay down balances quicker though!
01.12.22 - Aggregate - %12 - EX 795 (+15)
Cap1 - %0 ($42 balance but shows %0 usage, $13k CL)
Cap1 - %0
BBY Visa - %62 (this will be updating to about %15)
THD - %28
Kohls - %0
Verizon Visa - %4
Balance transfers kicked in on my two Cap1 cards and added some points. Kohls dropped to %0 and Verizon Visa posted %4 but there were no score changes when these updated. Can't wait for a year down the road from now when I can get most of my 28 points back that were dropped for the new HPs and new account. Have a feeling I'll be dropping 20-25 points in the next week when the new accounts and balances post.
01.12.22 - Aggregate - %17 - EX 780 (-15)
Cap1 - %0 ($42 balance)
Cap1 - %0
BBY Visa - %62 (this will be updating to about %15)
THD - %28
Kohls - %0
Verizon Visa - %4
Chase FF - %64 (%0 interest BT from BBY Visa)
Didn't expect Chase to report so quick. Chase Prime card will be posting in a few days I'd imagine. I had a notification of FNBO reporting to TU from my Experian subscription but I'm waiting a week or so to refresh my EQ and TU. Odd that FNBO didn't report to EX?
01.16.22 - Aggregate - %30 - EX 753 (-27)
Cap1 - %0 ($42 balance)
Cap1 - %0
BBY Visa - %62 (this will be updating to about %15)
THD - %28
Kohls - %0
Verizon Visa - %4
Chase FF - %64 (%0 interest BT from BBY Visa)
FNBO - %83 (new account with both Cap1 BTs with %0 interest)
Ouch that was a tough pill to swallow. Hopefully I get a few points back when the BBY Visa drops from %62 to %15 and then the new Amazon Visa should be posting any day now with 0% UTIL and $5k CL to help with aggregate UTIL. Now it's time to garden and keep chipping away at balances.
I just found this thread and have enjoyed reading it. I've watched my own scores bounce up and down with utilization.
When I started here, my FICO 8s were 680, 713, 701.
Paid down debt, the one negative I had fell off, and added some more accounts and they got up to 776, 787, 768.
Now I've run the debt back up a little 
and had a lot of inquiries and new accounts opened and I'm back down to 718, 736, 713.
Now paying stuff back down and waiting for it to report. Wondering how much my scores will improve over the next 2-3 months as I get back where I want to be.*
So following your journey tells me a little about where mine might take me.
Where I am on my latest reports is 9%, 5%, 12%, 49% (hey it's 0 APR), 0%, 35% (0 APR), 32% (0 APR), 0%, 0%, 7%.
Aggregate is 16%
*Where I want to be is AZE2, with those two at 9% or less and aggregate around 2%.
Starting Score: EQ8 680, TU8 713, EX8 701
Very interesting thread, @JFox418. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I'm curious, @SouthJamaica and others: For someone about to embark on the same effort to pay down credit card balances and monitor the affect on scores, would you advise using the Avalanche Method to pay down the cards with the highest interest rates first? Or is it aggregate utilization that matters more?
My current plan is to use some savings to pay down the highest interest rate cards to less than 30% util, and then work on the lower interest rate cards. I'll probably have to take out a personal loan to pay down the remaining cards so that my aggregate util is below 30 percent.
My hope is that doing this will raise my mortgage scores enough to qualify for a cash-out refinance to pay off the personal loan and my remaining credit card debt. I have high income and plenty of equity in my home, but need my mortgage scores higher to qualify for the best refi rates.
Any suggestions for modifications to this strategy? For example, if I want to raise my mortgage scores, would I be better off using savings to pay all my cards down to below 50 percent instead?
@ridgebackpilot wrote:Very interesting thread, @JFox418. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I'm curious, @SouthJamaica and others: For someone about to embark on the same effort to pay down credit card balances and monitor the affect on scores, would you advise using the Avalanche Method to pay down the cards with the highest interest rates first? Or is it aggregate utilization that matters more?
My current plan is to use some savings to pay down the highest interest rate cards to less than 30% util, and then work on the lower interest rate cards. I'll probably have to take out a personal loan to pay down the remaining cards so that my aggregate util is below 30 percent.
My hope is that doing this will raise my mortgage scores enough to qualify for a cash-out refinance to pay off the personal loan and my remaining credit card debt. I have high income and plenty of equity in my home, but need my mortgage scores higher to qualify for the best refi rates.
Any suggestions for modifications to this strategy? For example, if I want to raise my mortgage scores, would I be better off using savings to pay all my cards down to below 50 percent instead?
If I were going to apply for a mortgage, and I had revolving accounts that were at higher than 50% utilization, I would definitely at a minimum get those accounts to 48% or less. I'm no expert on mortgages, but I'm guessing that you would have to do even better than that to get the "best refi rates".
@ridgebackpilot wrote:Very interesting thread, @JFox418. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I'm curious, @SouthJamaica and others: For someone about to embark on the same effort to pay down credit card balances and monitor the affect on scores, would you advise using the Avalanche Method to pay down the cards with the highest interest rates first? Or is it aggregate utilization that matters more?
My current plan is to use some savings to pay down the highest interest rate cards to less than 30% util, and then work on the lower interest rate cards. I'll probably have to take out a personal loan to pay down the remaining cards so that my aggregate util is below 30 percent.
My hope is that doing this will raise my mortgage scores enough to qualify for a cash-out refinance to pay off the personal loan and my remaining credit card debt. I have high income and plenty of equity in my home, but need my mortgage scores higher to qualify for the best refi rates.
Any suggestions for modifications to this strategy? For example, if I want to raise my mortgage scores, would I be better off using savings to pay all my cards down to below 50 percent instead?
I don't really have a great answer except for what I've found and experienced recently. We bought a new house in 2019 and I had pretty high CC balances at that time. A couple over %50 I believe. Zero negatives, zero inquiries, clean file. I'd have to look at my scores that were pulled for that loan but I'm sure they weren't great. Maybe 620-650. I know DTI was important in the approval. I believe they wanted it to be %20 or less (through Third Federal) and we got a great rate for that time.
I think if you're looking for a fast score bump then you want to try and pay them all down below %49. Under %29 would be even better if possible. I wouldn't take out a new loan if you're wanting to refi. You'll have the new account plus hard pulls going into the refi app. I think with the CCs paid down you'd be in a good position for the cash out refi to pay off the balances without taking out any new loans beforehand.