Keep 0% or 7% utilization?

[Anonymous]

You mention that the only card of yours with a positive reported balance is an AU card.  AU cards are sometimes ignored by the FICO 8 algorithm.  Thus it is possible to have an AU card with a positive balance and a card in your name with a zero balance, and FICO might treat that as all cards at zero.

BBS can explain to you a way of testing whether or not your AU cards are being counted by the FICO 8 algorithm.

Down the road you should have a goal of having 3+ cards in your own name.

[omgitsMatt]

Both were maxed out when I got on as an AU, I paid down partially, but significantly each time, over the last 3 months and each staggered payment increased my scores significantly

Not this time though, just 725 to 731 on TU, nothing on the others

I'm currently putting all three to 5.9% a piece, we'll see in a month what happens

Fingers crossed

[Anonymous]

Are you choosing to have all three cards report at 5.9% -- because you think there might be some sort of scoring advantage? 

There is no way that will help you.  As BBS indicated earlier, you will maximize your score (from the perspective of CC balances) by having all cards at $0 except one, with the remaining card reporting a small positive balance.

The remaining card should not be an AU card, unless you have gone through the test to determine whether or not FICO 8 is ignoring it.  BBS and others can walk you through that test if you are interested.

[Anonymous]

How do you avoid paying interest on the ramining 5.00?? I always get confused on the time tables from date of charge to date interest actually acrues?

[Anonymous]

What i mean is say today is the 15th of the month and i get paid on the 30th. I charge 800.00 on my card and pay back 795.00 on the 30th when i get paid and my statement drops on the 4th of the month. My due date on the statement is the 13th ? so if i pay the 5.00 now between the 5th and the 10th i dont pay interest? but the 5.00 reported to the bureau only which shows a very small utilization?

[Anonymous]

Pretty much.

When your statement prints you'll have a statement balance.  This is typically what reports to the bureaus.  Say it's $100.  This means you need to pay that $100 statement balance in full by the due date, which may be (say) 3 weeks out.  During those 3 weeks, chances are you'll make additional purchases.  Your balance by the time your due date comes may then be greater, say $300.  All you have to do here is pay the $100 statement balance to avoid paying any interest.  Anything additional will simply lower your next statement balance.  Say you pay $275.  You've satisfied your $100 statement balance, plus paid another $175 which would then result in a $25 statement balance.  Then for the next month you'd have to just paid that $25 in order to avoid interest.