High Utilization Question

[Anonymous]

So I have a card with this low limit I let get charged for a computer. Its at 675 out of 1000. Now I know anything over 28.9% will be a bigger ding but is there another threshold? I really dont want to spend at least 400 this month to pay it down if the ding isnt going to be that much different but I dont know the other thresholds to go by.  

[Anonymous]

Individual thresholds are 28.9/48.9/68.9/88.9, add 8.9 for aggregate thresholds. That said, UTI has no memory, whatever ding you take for reporting this balance will return next month when you pay it off, nothing wrong with taking advantage of the grace period.

[Thomas_Thumb]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

So I have a card with this low limit I let get charged for a computer. Its at 675 out of 1000. Now I know anything over 28.9% will be a bigger ding but is there another threshold? I really dont want to spend at least 400 this month to pay it down if the ding isnt going to be that much different but I dont know the other thresholds to go by.  

---

Consider paying $200 to get below the 49% utilization threshold. 

[Anonymous]

I honestly don't think you need to worry that much about it, unless you plan to app for somethig within the next two billing cycles. The ding to your score is temporrary, and it's not like we're talking thousands here. 

[Anonymous]

The individual card ding that the OP may experience would likely be around 10 points tops, so with low-mid 700's scores pre-ding I would say this is a non-factor for him.  I'd be more concerned with aggregate utilization, as it is King to individual card utilization.  Does the additional $675 balance raise your aggregate utilization across one of the thresholds that OM mentioned in the first reply?  If not, don't sweat the reporting of your one card at 67.5% utilization.

[Anonymous]

So 8.9% has no bearing on individual then? I didn’t know that. Back when I only had one card, I went from 15% to 36% and dropped 27 points.

That is because I crossed 28.9% individually and aggregate.

But If I had paid it down to 7% I would’ve seen an increase but only because aggregate was below. Correct?

[Anonymous]

Going from 36% to 7% would have gained you three bonuses:

INDIVIDUAL UTIL:

When the card went from being 36% to under 28.9%

TOTAL UTIL

When your total U went from being 36% to under 28.9%

TOTAL UTIL

When your total U crossed to under 8.99%

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous
So 8.9% has no bearing on individual then?

---

Correct.  In fact, some have stated that on their profiles crossing the 28.9% threshold on an individual trade line did not impact their FICO scores, so long as aggregate utilization remained in the same place both before and after.

[Anonymous]

Wow this was actually a much more informative post than I originally thought with the info about utilitzations and thresholds! Thanks everyone!

What I decided to do was just pay it to 50% because Im curious to know what happens to the fico score then. 

[Anonymous]

Yes I agree very informative. I actually thought the 8.9% was for both not just aggregate. Well now it'll be a lot easier not trying to micro manage everything with keeping balances all over. Especially after reading another thread about not having to do AZEO all of the time. I can do that next year. I was sitting here trying to figure out how to use all of the new cards and get everything paid to hit AZEO and rotating my 8.9% between all of them.