By fiddling around with the FICO score simulator I found that by keeping usage to limit ratios on revolving accounts between 1 and 10 percent of total available there was an approximate 10 point positive FICO score increase (simulated) over just keeping limits low (generally suggested "under 15 percent"). I think this may differ depending on a persons "credit category," I believe I would fall into the "young hooligan" category by FICO standards... btw..the score simulator only allows rounded dollar amounts so all usages were rounded down to the nearest dollar..which makes all the percentages used actually slightly less than the ones listed DATA: %USAGE ~FICO SCORE INCREASE 0 70 .5 70 1 80 2 80 3 80 4 80 5 80 6 80 7 80 8 80 9 80 10 80 10.5 70 11 70 of course the EXACT score increase only applies to my particular credit situation...but I would think that the differential increase would apply to any situation...at least within my credit category By plugging in dollar amounts around the 1 and 10 percent marks I found that, rounded to the dollar outside the exact limit, these percentages are exact cutoffs. assuming continuity (i.e. assuming that at 3.47% usage I would get an 80 point median FICO boost) this could be listed as the following limits: [.01, .1] (including both end points) EXAMPLE: With my Equifax CR listing my total credit available as $2237 I should keep my usage between $22 and $224 briana do other members find a similar boost?
Dear Young Hooligan, Keeping those ratio's extremely low implies that even though you do have a credit line you don't "need" it. Can you say Financial Stability? On the other hand, if you have a CL you want to use at least some of it. If you don't, and keep your utilization at zero this implies that CC companies won't make ANY money on ya. Keeping that ratio at about 1-10% provides the best boost. Course, I don't know much about scoring but that's the common sense of it.
I hope that range is true for the general pop...there could be plenty of people stuck at 670 not able to get a prime card...and maybe the only thing that is wrong is that they are at 13% useage... briana
Depending upon how many accounts you have available to you, you can also get an easy bump by having a balance reporting on 5 or fewer accounts. I believe our bump was about 15 pts when Sears, (which showed a $9 balance on a $2700 CL the month before), reported paid. DemPooches