Individual Account Utilization and number of accounts Thresholds

[Anonymous]

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@Macroman wrote:

Thanks for the attempt to help.

Obviously from my post where I list my balances I don't have the financial resources to bring my Utilization down to 9% immediately. Believe me, I am working on it.

My immediate question is does it make a scoring differences whether 12 or 13 out of 16 open CL report balances.

The predominant answer from posters here seems to be to take whatever path is most effective at getting overall utilization below 10% and then concern oneself with the finer points of credit scoring.

Would you agree, jackg?

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Get your UTIL's individually below 30% as quickly as possible, but while on your path there try to get as many accounts reporting zero as possible. Once you've managed that you will want to get to 9% any way you can. Remember, 9.01% = 10%. Also, it is > 0% and <= 9%, the lower the better.

[PayingTheBills]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Of course when you pay off that $30 balance you will lose $5K out of the UTIL calc, To be optimal you still have to be < 9% UTIL without the $5K.

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I may be misunderstanding the situation, but if the BofA CC with the $5k limit is CLOSED, the limit on that card is calculated as $0.  So he already lost the $5k in his available credit....right?

[Macroman]

You only lose the CL in the UTIL ratio once the account is PIF.

[Anonymous]

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@PayingTheBills wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Of course when you pay off that $30 balance you will lose $5K out of the UTIL calc, To be optimal you still have to be < 9% UTIL without the $5K.

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I may be misunderstanding the situation, but if the BofA CC with the $5k limit is CLOSED, the limit on that card is calculated as $0.  So he already lost the $5k in his available credit....right?

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Incorrect! The entire CL of the closed card is included it the UTIL calculation as long as there is a balance reporting.

[Macroman]

Update:

Experian FAKO:

At least 1 or more of your accounts has a balance that is close to your credit limit, which may be lowering your score. When your balance is high, this can indicate to lenders that you are likely to overextend yourself.

This seems to be triggered when an individual balance exceeds 90% of the CL for revolving accounts.

My balances are down to 21,872  from 37,121 and reported utilization is 43% from 76% last summer. Monthly interest payments are down to about $400 from $700 which is my main barometer. 

TU 728     was 715

EQ 703     was 680

Scores are only improving slowly but getting rid of interest is my main priority.