New to fico scoring

[tv4184]

So I'm a little new to this and a little on my credit history before my question for the forum.

I pretty much have all credit cards which total up to 7 now.  I have a few accounts that are closed, one was circuit city, a joint with my parents at Best Buy, and I still have another joint account opened with them from Shell Mastercard.  The other ones I have were originally student cards and then progressed to platinum because I started graduate school and some how they thought it fit to change it like that.  I have a Citi Dividends, Chase Rewards, Chase SLATE, and BofA Signature.  Those average about 4 years old with the oldest being 6 years.  Now since I went to school for 8 years I do have a significant amount of student loans.  It is below the 6 figure mark though.  They don't go into repayment until November / January but I do plan on putting a forebearance on them.

The only bad thing is I have a high credit utilization of 42%.  So that means 3 of my cards have revolving balances.  One with a really high limit has about 89% utilization, another one has about 75% utilization, and this other accoutn has 5%.  I have the loans which do add to my overall debt.  Other than that I do not have any negatives and I always pay on time and pay more than my minimum payment.

So I started my scorewatch last week on the 20th and my Fico was 714.

This week my scorewatch updated and it went to 729.  So I'm not sure but in the past month I did pay that account that has 75% down to 33% utilization.  The other account that has 5% it reported the right balance since I pay only a little due to 0% interest.  The high one went down to about 87% utilization.  I was being more focused on paying the 75% down first since I know the other one would take a few months.  That puts my overal utilization at about 36%.  Is that a big enough difference to make my score fluctuate by 15 points?

The other questions I do have would be, when my student loans go back into repayment and i put it on forbearance would that hurt my score.  Also i had my credit pulled twice the week before the 20th and I guess it only showed up once but would that hurt me in getting a car loan later on.  The hard pulls were because I was trying to get a loan with 0 downpayment and I got flat out rejected because they said I was over extending myself.  I guess they could say that even though I am financially stable.  Anyway I look forward to hearing back from you guys.  Send me to other forums if some of these questions aren't pertinent to this one.

Thanks!

[tv4184]

The other question I forgot to ask was.  The BofA credit card has been dormant for a few years now.  Last time I used it was back in Dec 2007.  I wanted to start using that again.  If I read correctly...would that end up bringing my overall score down? 

Most of these questions are here because I'm preparing to get a car in January and I want to try to keep my score up as much as possible.  I don't know if the student loans would hurt and then the paying down my credit utilization is the bigger factor.  I also didn't realize I would have such a high credit rating with no history of auto loans or mortgages.

[RobertEG]

The, and absolutely, THE, most important factor in your post is that you have no lates.  Whatever you do, that is the KEY to both retaining and building credit scoring.

You are building a decent record, if your AAoA is 4 years, with an oldest account of 6 years,  You may be new understanding FICO scoring, but have apparently done the proper things in the past to build the solid score that you now have!

Knowing how to monitor and control monthly % util on your CCs is important, but within limits.
We all want to maximize our FICO score each month, but sometimes it is not important.

Percent utilization, as far as credit soring goes, has no histiorical memory.  40% this month means nothing next month.

The key is to identify when you plan to apply for new credit.  Then seriously, at least two months before that date, get your overall % util under 10%, secondarily to also have each indiv CC below 10%, and finally, if you can, have no more than half of your CCs repoting any balance before they do their pull of your CR and score.

With a current FICO score of 714, you are already in the approval range. 

 I dont think approval of an auto loan with your FICO  scores is even at issue,  It is probably only the rate they will offer.

Unless you default under terms of your student loans, there should be no credit reporting derogs.

Using the dormant BIOA will only help in preventing them from closing it.  Use it for a Slurpee once an month, then pay in full. 
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