Is there a difference if UTI reports @ 9% vs 22% on single account?

[Anonymous]

So here's my sticky situation, I have an account that has a balance of $3000 on a $15,000 limit plus change... today is the statement cut and I can make a payment (cash) but I have to drive an hour to get to the bank....anyway, if I leave it reporting at 22% single account it was previously reported at $1200 balance... which I thought I could do and make $2,000 payment, is there any big impact on credit score? My overall UTI will drop from 11% to 8% if I do make the payment. 

Your input is greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!

[Stryder]

From my personal experience, I think it depends on what bucket you're in. When I had 4 derogs, no mortgage and few cards, Revolving util made big differences in my scores. At 49% ...645, 39% ... 655, when I got to 12%, I went up to around 700. when my derog fell off of EX, it went to 739 at 7%, because I think I went into a different bucket.

I was on thread a few months ago, conversing with Brutal Body shots, and he said he paid his util down like 20% and it made a small difference in his score (I think like 4%), but he is in a different bucket with a thick profile (scores mid 750 at the time). So I think it really depends on what bucket your in. Going from 11% to 8% may make a difference, but my guess is for you, maybe 4-8pts if anything. My scores have been very simliar to what you have posted, so things like that, have made that much impact on me, but you certainly have a thicker profile than I do.

Are you planning on making a purchase this month? If not, you can just pay it down next month and be where you want to be...util has no memory.

[Anonymous]

Stryder has asked the money question, namely whether there is something for which you need to use your credit score in the next month or two.  For example, buying a car, buying a house.  If there is nothing you need your credit score for, then there's no reason to worry about utilization.  The extra scoring points you would have gotten you can get next month by mailing a check in the next week or two.

Here are a few thoughts. 

Your bank is open today (on a Sunday) but in order to make your payment you'll have to drive there which will take you an hour.  Lots of stuff jumped out at me there.  Are you sure your bank has branches that are open on Sunday?  If so, is there a particular reason that this bank doesn't permit you to make online payments?  (A lot easier than an hour drive.)  You mention that you'd be using cash to pay -- as in actual paper bills, like a hundred $20 bills?  Any reason you have that kind of cash rather than having it in your bank?  And if you need access to a brick and mortar bank, why is the closest one an hour away?  Finally, how exactly are you in this stuation where you have a hundred $20 bills on the last day of the billing cycle but want to make a payment -- how was it that you didn't make a payment a couple days ago?

You don't have to answer those questions, but I am just letting you know that they did jump to mind.

A more important issue is the sheer size of your CC debt.  You mention that a 2k payment will decrease your total utilization from 11% to 8%.  That's a 3% decrease.  $2000 divided by 3 = $667 which is therefore 1% of your debt.  That means your total CC debt is 67k.  That is.... a lot.  Worrying about a few FICO points should be the least of your concerns right now.  Your concern (in my opinion) should be the vast extent of your indebtedness to CC companies.  Your top priority should be implementing a plan to pay off all of that debt.  Every penny of it.  Until you get all of it paid off (and also have analyzed how the debt happened in the first place) worrying about your FICO score is a bad sign, because the sole function of a good FICO score is as a tool to get people to lend you more money.  You do not need to be going further into debt, but rather getting out of it. 

Since you ask, however, there is no penalty associated with individual card utilization until a particular card gets quite high, e.g. 50%.  As long as a card is < 49% there is likely no individual penalty associated with it.  But of course any card with a balance is still contributing to your total utilization (which uses all your credit limits together).

You will also get a scoring bonus from having a lot of $0 balances on your open cards.  That's a scoring factor completely apart from % utilization.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Stryder has asked the money question, namely whether there is something for which you need to use your credit score in the next month or two.  For example, buying a car, buying a house.  If there is nothing you need your credit score for, then there's no reason to worry about utilization.  The extra scoring points you would have gotten you can get next month by mailing a check in the next week or two.

Here are a few thoughts. 

Your bank is open today (on a Sunday) but in order to make your payment you'll have to drive there which will take you an hour.  Lots of stuff jumped out at me there.  Are you sure your bank has branches that are open on Sunday?  If so, is there a particular reason that this bank doesn't permit you to make online payments?  (A lot easier than an hour drive.)  You mention that you'd be using cash to pay -- as in actual paper bills, like a hundred $20 bills?  Any reason you have that kind of cash rather than having it in your bank?  And if you need access to a brick and mortar bank, why is the closest one an hour away?  Finally, how exactly are you in this stuation where you have a hundred $20 bills on the last day of the billing cycle but want to make a payment -- how was it that you didn't make a payment a couple days ago?

You don't have to answer those questions, but I am just letting you know that they did jump to mind.

A more important issue is the sheer size of your CC debt.  You mention that a 2k payment will decrease your total utilization from 11% to 8%.  That's a 3% decrease.  $2000 divided by 3 = $667 which is therefore 1% of your debt.  That means your total CC debt is 67k.  That is.... a lot.  Worrying about a few FICO points should be the least of your concerns right now.  Your concern (in my opinion) should be the vast extent of your indebtedness to CC companies.  Your top priority should be implementing a plan to pay off all of that debt.  Every penny of it.  Until you get all of it paid off (and also have analyzed how the debt happened in the first place) worrying about your FICO score is a bad sign, because the sole function of a good FICO score is as a tool to get people to lend you more money.  You do not need to be going further into debt, but rather getting out of it. 

Since you ask, however, there is no penalty associated with individual card utilization until a particular card gets quite high, e.g. 50%.  As long as a card is < 49% there is likely no individual penalty associated with it.  But of course any card with a balance is still contributing to your total utilization (which uses all your credit limits together).

You will also get a scoring bonus from having a lot of $0 balances on your open cards.  That's a scoring factor completely apart from % utilization.

---

I disagree. I'm absolutely sure, based on my own personal experience, that 30% is a significant cutoff in FICO 8. I definitely lose points when a single card is at 31% as opposed to 29%.

I believe that 10% is another cutoff,, but I can't say that with equal certainty.

[Anonymous]

The thing is... a number of people have tried raising a tradeline from a very small number (1-3% say) to (say) 45% with no score change at all (keeping their total U constant).  Not just one person but a number of different people.  I am not even certain that 49% matters though it is plausible enough that I have no problem accepting it.

I am certain that 10% can't matter.  If it was necessary to keep every tradeline below 10% for optimal scoring, then the claim that you need to keep total utilization < 10% would be redundant.  Keeping total < 10% would follow from the need to keep every individual tradeline < 10%.  There's be no need for even the concept of total U.

I admit freely, however, that I am not capable of testing the 30% conjecture, since all of my credit limits are high (at least 10k) and my monthly spending is low.  Even when I put everything I can on my credit cards I still don't seem to have more than $2000 per month of CC spending, typically much less.

Here's an interesting idea though.  We could create a discussion thread that would solicit testers for this question.  They'd need to be people who had one relatively small CL, people who could easily keep their total U small while raising that tradeline from 1% to 32% to 52%.  And we'd want a number of different people, especially people with clean scorecards (though ideally people with dirty would be great too).

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

The thing is... a number of people have tried raising a tradeline from a very small number (1-3% say) to (say) 45% with no score change at all (keeping their total U constant).  Not just one person but a number of different people.  I am not even certain that 49% matters though it is plausible enough that I have no problem accepting it.

I am certain that 10% can't matter.  If it was necessary to keep every tradeline below 10% for optimal scoring, then the claim that you need to keep total utilization < 10% would be redundant.  Keeping total < 10% would follow from the need to keep every individual tradeline < 10%.  There's be no need for even the concept of total U.

I admit freely, however, that I am not capable of testing the 30% conjecture, since all of my credit limits are high (at least 10k) and my monthly spending is low.  Even when I put everything I can on my credit cards I still don't seem to have more than $2000 per month of CC spending, typically much less.

Here's an interesting idea though.  We could create a discussion thread that would solicit testers for this question.  They'd need to be people who had one relatively small CL, people who could easily keep their total U small while raising that tradeline from 1% to 32% to 52%.  And we'd want a number of different people, especially people with clean scorecards (though ideally people with dirty would be great too).

---

Say what you will but when I have a card with over 30% it costs points.

[newhis]

So, for OP, it shouldn't be anything mayor with 9% vs 22% on single account, if the overall util is less than 10%.

[Anonymous]

---

@newhis wrote:

So, for OP, it shouldn't be anything mayor with 9% vs 22% on single account, if the overall util is less than 10%.

---

Hi Newhis.  The cutoff for total utilization is likely 8.99%.  That's because FICO rounds percents up.  And therefore 9.001% would be rounded to 10.  Since 10 is not less than 10, the practical upshot is you want a total U of < 8.99%.

That said, I can't emphasize how much Stryder penetrated to the heart of the matter by asking whether the OP needed a maximized credit score in the next two months.  Credit scores have no value in themselves, only when you need them for something.  Stryder saw that, and advised the OP just to make the payment whenever he wanted, since he probably didn't need an optimized score this moment.

[newhis]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

---

@newhis wrote:

So, for OP, it shouldn't be anything mayor with 9% vs 22% on single account, if the overall util is less than 10%.

---

Hi Newhis.  The cutoff for total utilization is likely 8.99%.  That's because FICO rounds percents up.  And therefore 9.001% would be rounded to 10.  Since 10 is not less than 10, the practical upshot is you want a total U of < 8.99%.

That said, I can't emphasize how much Stryder penetrated to the heart of the matter by asking whether the OP needed a maximized credit score in the next two months.  Credit scores have no value in themselves, only when you need them for something.  Stryder saw that, and advised the OP just to make the payment whenever he wanted, since he probably didn't need an optimized score this moment.

---

Thank you.

I agree, what I try to do is build a thick file and stay in a good range, so I don't need to do any different that normal card use: get a statement and pay before due date.

And score is not the only thing lenders look. I got a CSR with 20% APR with a score above 780, a year ago Cap1 gave me 13%, I expected the best APR from Chase but they do look at other things.

[Anonymous]

Stryder, good memory on our utilization discussion.  Yes, I dropped my aggregate utilization from about 35% to 5% or so and I saw score increases of a few points at best.  That's how utilization impacts my profile.  I know for others, such a change on a thinner profile could result in score bumps of 10, 20, 30+ points. 

If the OP is looking at 8% aggregate utilization verses 11%, he'd be crossing one threshold compared to the two that I crossed.  One threshold for his profile could be anything from a couple of points to probably 10-15 at most, IMO.

As stated by CGID earlier, unless he's planning on apping within the next month no big deal with losing the points... even if it's 10-15.  He can get those points right back next cycle when he makes that big payment and it reports.