Just to clarify: it's possible to "owe nothing" on your credit cards but still get dinged for util.
That's because the banks chose to report (in most cases) your balances as of your statement date, instead of your balances as of your due date.
So if you have a $500 CC, and you use it during the month, and it reports $100 due for that month on the new statement, and then you pay the $100, then you will owe nothing, but that $100 will be reported to the credit bureaus, and that card will show 20% utilization ($500 / $100.) Depending on what else is going on with your reports, that can cost you some points.
If this is happening to you, and you're trying to squeeze out the last few points, pay off every CC except one before their statement dates, so that they report $0. On the remaining card, pay all but $10, let it show up on your statement, and then be sure to pay it off before the due date --this is easy to forget with two-step paying.
A few cards report differently:
- US Bank cards report the balance as of the last business day of the month, and they send that info to the bureaus that night
- HSBC and Orchard bank cards (not the Best Buy store-only card) report the balance as of the last business day of the month, but they don't send in that number for another week or so
- many American Express cards report the statement balance, but they don't send in the info for four more weeks, so your reported balance always seems to be nearly a month behind. They've started changing on some cards, but not yet all, from what I've read here.
"Playing the util game" is pretty tedious for a lot of people, but it does optimize your reported scores by minimizing your revolving util. You only really need to do this if you're getting ready to apply for something that is highly score-driven --think mortgages and auto loans. But many of us now do this routinely, because we like what it does for our scores. 
Don't forget to let one card (just one) report a tiny balance, because most people get dinged for all cards with $0 reported balances. It will take each card a billing cycle for the $0's to show up, show that means it could be a month or more for everything to update, if you just had a statement drop on a card or two.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
Just to clarify: it's possible to "owe nothing" on your credit cards but still get dinged for util.
Just to clarify: I disagree. 
You are in debt once the billing cycle is over and the statement has been released. If you pay in full by the due date, it merely means you escaped paying interest on the balance. You are then out of debt, but did owe the balance throughout the grace period.
@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
Just to clarify: it's possible to "owe nothing" on your credit cards but still get dinged for util.
Just to clarify: I disagree.
Well, yes of course, it's debt. If you really want to get technical, we're in debt the moment the CC is swiped, because at that point, we have promised to pay someone for whatever we just bought. That's debt.
But I promise you, if you ask people who pay their CC bills in full as soon as they get the statement, they often feel that they owe nothing, in the sense that they don't carry balances. My 83-year-old mother will chase you with a broom if you try to tell her that she's in debt to Macy's, as she has never carried a CC balance in her life. (And never will.) But she never pays before the statements come, either.
So in an attempt to clarify what gets reported when to credit bureaus, and how it might affect scoring, I went along with one possible meaning of "owing nothing."
@woozy wrote:If you "let one card (just one) report a tiny balance, because most people get dinged for all cards with $0 reported balances", then why wouldn't you let a tiny balance show on each card? I'm confused.
Also, how long after the paydown should the score improve?
There's a ding for having no revolving accounts showing a balance, I guess because it looks like you're not using your credit at all, so you let one report. And there's a separate ding (of course!!!) for "too many accounts with balances."
If all your cards report balances, tiny or otherwise, you'll most likely lose points. I've seen it as a negative on my reports, back when I thought every card "had" to show a balance. It's not a big ding, but for someone trying to squeeze out the last few points, this is a point worth knowing.
The tipping point may or may not be the combination of:
- half or fewer of all open accounts (revolving, installment, mortgage, other) reporting a balance
- fewer than half of all open revolving accounts reporting a balance
- but at least one revolving account reporting a balance
If someone has a mortgage and two auto loans, that's three accounts that by definition will always have a balance as long as they're open. To meet the condtions bulleted above, you'd then have to have 3 CC's without a balance (half or fewer of all open accounts with balances.) But then you'd get dinged for no CC's with balances, so you'd want to have 4 open CC's, one reporting a balance, to meet all three conditions.
(Anyone still awake? )
The simplest way I've found to satisfy all this junk is to just let one report a balance, and keep the others showing $0.
If you want to see all the different ways that you can lose points in FICO scoring 
, read this: FICO scoring reason codes (stickied at the top of this forum)
edit: seem to have lost the ability to add to three