I got a total of 3 credit cards. All three are maxed out. I dont know for sure but Im thinking my Equifax score is hovering from 560-575. Any quess or estimates of who much my score could/would increase if I dropped down to about 50% of credit used on each card instead of my current 100-110%? Thanks
Equifax's credit watch has a score simulator that can answer this question better for you. You can plug in any $ amount that you want to pay off.
I'd love to join that service but due to current problems with my equifax file I can't join. Hopefully my file problem will resolve itself so I can use the service
I went from 602 on equifax fico score to 618 by reducing my balances from 90% used to 20%. Obviously your results will be different but paying down your balances is an easy way to raise your score. Feels great too.
That's danged odd. Fair, Isaac claimed that 35% of your score stems from your % utilization. I would have imagine that you'd have more like a 100 point improvement than a 16 point improvement.
I am in a similar situation and I follow my scores carefully. For each 1% of the total that I pay off, I gain one point. I calculate that by paying it all off, I will gain 100 points, going from about 680 to 780 The CE simulator gives me a similar conclusion, but they use a range of 770-810. Doing the calculations is the easy part. Paying it off it the hard part. Also, I have no other problems on my reports. If you have other problems, they may affect your scores more than paying down debt.
My EQ fico jumped from 688 to 781 when I paid off 11k debt on 15k CL. 688: 11300 balance 697: 10000 balance 751: 2200 balance 781: 380 balance The score simulator was quite accurate predicting my scores.
