need advice please

[mrldp40]

below in my sig shows my current debt only 1k on cash rewards  and i have that in my pocket. my question is it good to show a bunch of 0 balance accounts for score sake?

[AverageJoesCredit]

Best to keep your cards at zero balance with one card reporting like 9% or less for max scoring purposes. I try to maintain a pif mentality but on occassion carry a balance. Try not to spend what you cant pay back at end of month itll help that debt not to grow. Ugh. Still learning that one

[mrldp40]

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@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Best to keep your cards at zero balance with one card reporting like 9% or less for max scoring purposes. I try to maintain a pif mentality but on occassion carry a balance. Try not to spend what you cant pay back at end of month itll help that debt not to grow. Ugh. Still learning that one

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ok ill pay cash rewards down to 300 ajc.  i think i should be moving into the mid 600s before long.thanks

[AverageJoesCredit]

No probs. I wish i could go back in time and not run up some cards so high but lessons learned. Try snd keep your spending in check so its easier to keep your payments in check. When we roll with not alot of money we gotta be more judicious lol with on how we spend

[JR_TX]

Yeah AJC is spot on! Just follow his advice... Rinse... repeat as a strategy for FICO purposes. Bitter lesson for me to learn as well that's why I always tell myself now, "Never again!"...

[Anonymous]

The couple of times I let zero balance report on all cards, my scores took a nifty dive. Follow AJC advice on this. 

[HeavenOhio]

Ideally, you'll want to let one card report a small balance with the rest reporting zero (AZEO / all zero except one). You don't have to pay interest to do that. The balance should come from new charges.

As Justagirl73 says, you'll be dinged if all cards report zero. But it isn't a panic situation because as soon as you let a card report a small balance, your points will come back. Likewise, if your balances are a little higher than you'd like them to be, you can fix that quickly by making payments.

Generally, AZEO isn't necessary unless an important credit application is coming up. Simply try to avoid the kind of things that spook lenders, such as posting extremely high balances. However, because your scores are on the low end, I think it'd be beneficial to aim for AZEO as much as possible until they rise to the point where you have a cushion.

[mitchblue]

I wonder how many points.. For example I usually have half report zero and the other reports under 9%. Not on purpose I just let them auto pif on the due date. Will there be many points lost in this scenario?

[SouthJamaica]

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@mrldp40 wrote:

below in my sig shows my current debt only 1k on cash rewards  and i have that in my pocket. my question is it good to show a bunch of 0 balance accounts for score sake?

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Yes. Optimum for scoring is to let all but one of your cards report a zero balance, and one card reporting a small balance.

[Anonymous]

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@mitchblue wrote:

I wonder how many points.. For example I usually have half report zero and the other reports under 9%. Not on purpose I just let them auto pif on the due date. Will there be many points lost in this scenario?

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Best way to answer that is to test it yourself.  One month do AZEO, the next month let half your cards report a balance.  You should be able to easily see what the score difference is.

I do see that you emphasize keeping all your cards reporting an individual util of < 9%.  That's likely to be overkill.  It's almost certain that there's no individual util penalty until a person exceeds 29.0%.  It's one's total util that needs to be kept very low.