Score drops despite good habits

[Tiersha]

I am so confused.  4 months ago I got my utilization to 8% and I've kept it there.  EA month I use my cards, each for a small purchase and pay that purchase off, leaving a small balance (less than what a payment would be).

Three yrs perfect pymt history on my house, car and signature loan.  Car and sig loan are less than $6k at this time.  I've had multiple late payments drop off.  Ive a good mix of credit.  Every change that has been going on for 17 months did increase my score but now my score keeps going down even though nothing negative has happened.  Every 2 weeks theres an update and for the last two months ea update results in a couple point drop.

I dont get it.  Ps my dti is 38%.

[Anonymous]

Where are you getting your scores from?

[Tiersha]

Here at myfico.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Tiersha wrote:

I am so confused.  4 months ago I got my utilization to 8% and I've kept it there.  EA month I use my cards, each for a small purchase and pay that purchase off, leaving a small balance (less than what a payment would be).

Three yrs perfect pymt history on my house, car and signature loan.  Car and sig loan are less than $6k at this time.  I've had multiple late payments drop off.  Ive a good mix of credit.  Every change that has been going on for 17 months did increase my score but now my score keeps going down even though nothing negative has happened.  Every 2 weeks theres an update and for the last two months ea update results in a couple point drop.

I dont get it.  Ps my dti is 38%.

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1. How do you get updates every 2 weeks?

2. From what you described it sounds like you're letting each account report a small balance. Your scores would be better served by letting most of your accounts report a zero balance.

3. Your DTI is irrelevant, since FICO doesn't factor in income.

[Tiersha]

I get the "major " update monthly but I'm also getting one every two weeks, if there is even a 1 point score change. I thought it odd considering I thought it would be once a month.

You are right dti here doesnt matter, that was my refi in my head.

And oh hell no I am not paying off my small balances.  If I do then I will drop 10+ points.  That happened ea time I did that...irritating as heck.  So I just make sure that the total balances of all my cards together equal no more than 10% utilization and I use them ea month.

[Anonymous]

No you want them all to report zero except for one, if you’re trying to maximize your score. If you let them all report zero you get AZ loss.

[JoeLuvsHisCredit]

Sorry OP Hugs

[Anonymous]

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@Tiersha wrote:

I get the "major " update monthly but I'm also getting one every two weeks, if there is even a 1 point score change. I thought it odd considering I thought it would be once a month.

You are right dti here doesnt matter, that was my refi in my head.

And oh hell no I am not paying off my small balances.  If I do then I will drop 10+ points.  That happened ea time I did that...irritating as heck.  So I just make sure that the total balances of all my cards together equal no more than 10% utilization and I use them ea month.

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You are not getting an update when there is a score change.  You are getting an update when there is an alert of a credit report change.  It is extremely important not to confuse these two things.  At the time you receive an alert of a credit report change you are also provided with a Fico score.  That Fico score is based on your credit report at that moment in time and if it went up or down doesn't have to be directly tied to the alert reason provided.

Also as long as you have at least one [non-zero] balance reported on a major bank card you can zero out the rest of your CCs and will not experience any sort of score drop.  If you do see a score drop, it came from a different factor if you have a reported balance.

[Tiersha]

Thanks for the mid month clarification, that was always weird in my head.

[Anonymous]

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@Tiersha wrote:

I am so confused.  4 months ago I got my utilization to 8% and I've kept it there.  EA month I use my cards, each for a small purchase and pay that purchase off, leaving a small balance (less than what a payment would be).

Three yrs perfect pymt history on my house, car and signature loan.  Car and sig loan are less than $6k at this time.  I've had multiple late payments drop off.  Ive a good mix of credit.  Every change that has been going on for 17 months did increase my score but now my score keeps going down even though nothing negative has happened.  Every 2 weeks theres an update and for the last two months ea update results in a couple point drop.

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Hi @Tiersha ! There can be point loss when switching scorecards (credit profile data groups) at various aging thresholds of Age of Oldest Account (abbreviated as AoOA here on the forum).

You could keep the same exact balances reporting from one month to the next (I tested this myself) and still see something like a -20 point loss on some scores. For example, 3 years Age of Oldest Account really costs a lot, as myself and several others have found.

I also lost -22 points on one of my mortgage scores (EX 2) at 2yrs 0mo AoOA - different scoring model, different threshold.

Since you have a myFICO subscription, you can get alerts several times a month if your account closing dates are spread out. As each one is reported you might have a score change, and it could very well be that you hit one of the aging thresholds on the 1st of the month that will then be a new factor in a score change alert on the 16th, for example.