The Truth about Credit Card Utilization

[mowglidude]

Ok, so I will keep you posted, if this is the right place, of my progress. Currently I am at 68% aggregate UT on 13 CC accts. I have about $78K in credit used and can I pay it all off this month. I just recently last month started making $2-3K payments on several cards. I was at a 705 FICO score a few weeks ago, then my Sams card didn't report my $10,000 limit for whatever reason, so my UT% went up, which pushed me over 69% and I lost 20 points, down to 685 on July 17th. Since then I have paid down several cards to be back at 68% currently. If Sams was reporting correctly, I would be at 62% today. Since I have paid several cards to the next individual UT level, my score is back at 698 with just paying down 3 cards. I just paid down two more cards today from 88% to 67% individually, to see what happens next. These two report the first week of August. And as the month moves forward, I will pay down most to zero, or below 8%. I should have a good indication by the end of September.

[Anonymous]

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@Superduper2014 wrote:

UPDATE FOR DATA POINTS IF INTERESTED: 

Both cards were paid down to 49% from 90% and scores jumped almost 40 points total. 

First card to report a 49% increase FICO 8 by 17 points

Second Card to report 49% increased Fico 8 by 19 points. 

Next step is

First card was paid down to 29% and it will report on the 3rd of August. What will the FIco 8 score jump to? The Fico score is at 770 

And the second card was paid down to 29% as well. Wonder what kind of increase would that provide. 

Total Utilization is at 18% right now. All 3 scores in the 770+-

Any guesses on what will happnen with these scores when 29% starts reporting? 

I have a thread going here if interested, but this is post is the result of following this guide https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Utilization-Intervals-Brackets-etc/m-p/5... 

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@Superduper2014 it depends, you're not telling us what the aggregate utilization changes will be. 

just saw you added the link so I will check out that thread. 

[Anonymous]

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@mowglidude wrote:

Ok, so I will keep you posted, if this is the right place, of my progress. Currently I am at 68% aggregate UT on 13 CC accts. I have about $78K in credit used and can I pay it all off this month. I just recently this month started making $2-3K payments on several cards. I was at a 705 FICO score a few weeks ago, then my Sams card idint report my $10,000 limit for whatever reason, so my UT went down, which pushed me over 69% and I lost 20 points, down to 685. Since then I have paid down several cards to be back at 68%. If sams was reporting correctly, I would be at 62% today. Since I have paid several cards to the next individual UT level, my score is back at 698 with just paying down 3 cards. I just paid down two more cards from 88% to 67% today, to see what happens next.

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@mowglidude I think your data points could be helpful to the community. I think it would be great if you started a thread and gave all your data points. But you're more than welcome to PM me or post here or as I suggested, start your own thread and chronicle everything for the community's benefit if you're willing. If you do start a thread definitely drop us the link, so we can follow it.

[mowglidude]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@mowglidude wrote:

Ok, so I will keep you posted, if this is the right place, of my progress. Currently I am at 68% aggregate UT on 13 CC accts. I have about $78K in credit used and can I pay it all off this month. I just recently this month started making $2-3K payments on several cards. I was at a 705 FICO score a few weeks ago, then my Sams card idint report my $10,000 limit for whatever reason, so my UT went down, which pushed me over 69% and I lost 20 points, down to 685. Since then I have paid down several cards to be back at 68%. If sams was reporting correctly, I would be at 62% today. Since I have paid several cards to the next individual UT level, my score is back at 698 with just paying down 3 cards. I just paid down two more cards from 88% to 67% today, to see what happens next.

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@mowglidude I think your data points could be helpful to the community. I think it would be great if you started a thread and gave all your data points. But you're more than welcome to PM me or post here or as I suggested, start your own thread and chronicle everything for the community's benefit if you're willing. If you do start a thread definitely drop us the link, so we can follow it.

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Should I post in the link that @Superduper2014 provided?

[Anonymous]

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@mowglidude wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@mowglidude wrote:

Ok, so I will keep you posted, if this is the right place, of my progress. Currently I am at 68% aggregate UT on 13 CC accts. I have about $78K in credit used and can I pay it all off this month. I just recently this month started making $2-3K payments on several cards. I was at a 705 FICO score a few weeks ago, then my Sams card idint report my $10,000 limit for whatever reason, so my UT went down, which pushed me over 69% and I lost 20 points, down to 685. Since then I have paid down several cards to be back at 68%. If sams was reporting correctly, I would be at 62% today. Since I have paid several cards to the next individual UT level, my score is back at 698 with just paying down 3 cards. I just paid down two more cards from 88% to 67% today, to see what happens next.

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@mowglidude I think your data points could be helpful to the community. I think it would be great if you started a thread and gave all your data points. But you're more than welcome to PM me or post here or as I suggested, start your own thread and chronicle everything for the community's benefit if you're willing. If you do start a thread definitely drop us the link, so we can follow it.

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Should I post in the link that @Superduper2014 provided?

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@mowglidude that would give an opportunity to compare and contrast the score changes for utilization I suppose, what do you think @Superduper2014 ? If it's cool with SuperDuper2014, I would say yes, otherwise I would say start your own or whichever option you prefer. 

[mowglidude]

I took your advice and started another thread. Here is the link: https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Testing-Credit-Card-Utilization-Threshol...

[SouthJamaica]

Question @Anonymous 

Where did you get the numbers from for your aggregate revolving utilization thresholds?

[Anonymous]

His original post says "personal."

It looks like he's more or less followed the general concensus aggregate utilization thresholds.  Whether they are accurate or not I'm not qualified to say, as I haven't ever crossed/tested the majority of them.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

His original post says "personal."

It looks like he's more or less followed the general concensus aggregate utilization thresholds.  Whether they are accurate or not I'm not qualified to say, as I haven't ever crossed/tested the majority of them.

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At one place he  says "I've analyzed many profiles and 3Bs".  As far as I remember ABCD2199, either privatly

professionally, was helping many people with their credit problems and had access to lots  and lots of credit reports.

[SouthJamaica]

I personally don't think it's right for us to be repeating these opinions as though they are facts when we don't know one way or the other whether they have validity, or on what they are based.

As to revolving utilization this is the sum total of what I know and don't know:

1. I can say with confidence that in my profile

(a) > 29% individual revolving account utilization is a major threshold in FICO 8 and FICO 9 scores

(b) the number of individual accounts reporting > 29% is a factor

(c) the percentage of individual accounts reporting greater than a zero balance is a factor

(d) no individual accounts reporting a balance causes a penalty

(e) aggregate revolving utilization is optimized at 1% to 3%, and as it rises from there scores generally go down

(f) utilization of > 9% depresses one's scores, and as the percentage goes up the scores go down, without regard to thresholds. Every percentage point is another "threshold", and aggregate utilization in the 20% region depresses my scores by around 70 points.

2. I believe, but could neither prove nor disprove, that in general 6% and 9% are major thresholds in aggregate utilization

3. I would advise someone who is suffering from very high revolving utilization and struggling to improve their credit scores to work on the assumption that 19%, 29%, 39%, 49%, etc are thresholds in aggregate revolving utilization, but I do not know that they are, or even believe that they are. I'm sure that 34% is better than 39% and worse than 29%.

As to aggregate installment loan utilization, I can say with confidence that > 9% is a major threshold.

That's it. I am truly done paying homage to urban legends based on the author's opinion as to what is 'common knowledge' or 'collective wisdom'. 'Collective wisdom' is just another way of saying "the madness of crowds".