That guarantees you'll have a credit
card utilization percentage of zero, which will be great for your credit scores.
For the second stage of your proposed balance transfer option, the Card 2 and Wal - Mart balances are transferred to Card 1, which takes Card 1 utilization back up to 93 percent and the other two
card utilization percentages down to zero.
Not exact matches
Credit
utilization ratio is the expression of your
card balance as a
percentage of your
card credit limit.
Your credit
utilization is the amount you owe across all of your credit
cards as a
percentage of your credit limit across those
cards.
Credit
utilization ratio is the expression of your
card balance as a
percentage of your
card credit limit.
Simply by shifting existing debt around to reduce the
utilization percentage on individual
cards you can expect to increase the score by a few points or more — particularly when bringing all
cards to below 50 percent — yet it's going to take an actual reduction in your overall debt to drop that combined
utilization to where your score rises significantly.
The two main credit scoring forces at work in this discussion are the credit
utilization (
card balance / limit)
percentages calculated on both an individual and combined account basis, with combined
utilization always having the most scoring impact.
So, if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans but you're not carrying a balance on your credit
cards, your debt
utilization percentage will be low, which is good for your credit score.
To more accurately gauge your risk of nonpayment, the widely used FICO scoring model not only looks at overall debt in comparison to total credit limits, «the scoring formula also looks at
utilization on the individual
cards that make up the overall
utilization percentage,» says Barry Paperno, consumer operations manager at myFICO.com.
Other than the student loans I have 1 other installment loan (car) and a credit
card with a low
percentage of
utilization.
However, with
utilization on the higher side — say, more than 25 percent — the removal of the closed
card's limit can cause those remaining balances to make up a larger proportion of your available credit, increase your
utilization percentage, and lower your score.
Distribute the balance to other
cards so your individual
utilization percentage on each
card is less than 30 %.
Not only should you calculate your total
utilization percentage, you should also figure out what that
percentage is for every credit
card you have.
With some
percentages increasing at the same time others are decreasing, as tends to happen with a balance transfer, there can be no way for a consumer to know if, for example, one
card's
utilization drop is helping the score more than another
card's rising
utilization is hurting it.
Individual
card utilization Unlike overall
utilization, this set of calculations is neither easy to understand nor predictable when a wide mix of
utilization percentages makes up the overall
utilization rate.
Overall (combined)
card utilization Here all of your balances are divided by all of your credit limits to arrive at a single
utilization percentage.
Since store
cards are included in credit
utilization (balance / limit
percentage) calculations, along with credit
cards, I'm guessing that the $ 9K balance is taking up a good portion of that
card's credit limit and, depending on how you pay it over the 12 months, is likely to continue contributing to a higher combined
utilization percentage than you'd otherwise be seeing.
Conversely, if the closed
card has a lower
percentage than the other
card (s), it's helping your score — and thus could hurt it by being excluded from combined
utilization calculations.
Generally, if the closed
card has a higher
utilization percentage than your other
card (s), your score should benefit by it being left out.
If the authorized user
card's
utilization percentage is lower than your combined average, that's good news.
These actions can hurt your score if they result in higher credit
utilization (
percentage of balance to credit limit); therefore, you're going to want to preserve your credit lines by keeping your credit
card accounts open and using them frequently — while, at the same time, maintaining low balances.
Too - high
utilization rate: Your
utilization rate is the
percentage of available of credit you use on your credit
cards.
Because too much revolving debt — also known as credit
card debt — increases your
utilization rate, or the
percentage of available credit you use.
But beware as this could make you «jump» in your
percentage of credit
utilization on a single
card, which will lower your score.
By closing a credit
card account, you reduce your available credit — making it more difficult to keep your debt - to - credit
utilization ratio below 30 % (the recommended
percentage).
Credit
utilization is the
percentage of your available credit that you use, and is primarily determined by your credit
cards, It's the ratio of how much you owe compared to your credit
card limits.
But canceling a credit
card does remove the line of credit attached to the account, which could negatively impact your credit
utilization — the
percentage of your available credit used at any point in time.
Yet, in the longer run — six months to a year — the result of having added new
cards can be a higher score than would have otherwise been achieved, thanks to the lower credit
utilization (individual and combined
card balance / limit
percentage) that often occurs when the amount of available credit increases.
While a doubling of the
utilization percentage will not occur with every closed
card, and your mileage will certainly vary in these situations, the simplest lesson to learn from this exercise is to keep
cards open whenever possible, especially if you tend to carry balances on other
cards.
Credit
utilization affects your score both on the individual and combined account level, such that even if your combined
utilization percentage is low, having any highly utilized
cards within that combination can keep your score from being as high as it can be.
Specifically, this is your combined credit
utilization percentage (total
card balances / credit limits) that, once it gets higher than 25 percent or so, could be impacted when any
card is closed.
In this economy, it's not uncommon for a person or family to rely on
cards to help make it through the month, which can quickly raise their credit
utilization percentage and thus bring down their credit score, regardless of whether they pay the
card off in full by the end of the billing cycle.
Dear Speaking of Credit, My credit scores generally run from 825 to 832, but appear to ding from the
utilization percentage on my
cards.
It's impossible for anyone to accurately estimate how many points you can expect to lose from opening new
cards without knowing your current score,
utilization percentages, length of credit history and many other factors.
The typical monthly
utilization for that
card would be 10 percent ($ 100 / $ 1,000), the kind of low
percentage the score likes to see.
To give you an example of how a higher balance on one
card one month can raise the
utilization percentage from the prior month — and hurt the score — let's say a
card has a credit limit of $ 1,000 and the monthly charges typically add up to $ 100 before being paid off the following month.
When going the route you've suggested, this is how your combined and individual
utilization percentages might look after using the $ 3,500 to pay off
Card 1, pay Card 2 down by $ 300 and the Wal - Mart card down by $
Card 1, pay
Card 2 down by $ 300 and the Wal - Mart card down by $
Card 2 down by $ 300 and the Wal - Mart
card down by $
card down by $ 200.
Whichever way you choose to distribute that $ 3,500 windfall among your
cards, your credit score will surely thank you for reducing those maxed out balances and lowering your credit
utilization (balance / credit limit
percentage).
There can be one problem with this last option, however, and that is knowing how much to allocate to each
card so that you can match the individual and combined
utilization percentages as closely as possible.
** Credit
Utilization Ratio: A number of outstanding balances on all credit
cards divided by the sum of each
card's limit, and it's expressed as a
percentage.
People who carry credit
card debt have higher credit
utilization ratios — the
percentage of their credit limits they're using.
Your
utilization rate is the balance you have on each individual credit
card expressed as a
percentage of the limit.
When your credit
card balances climb, so does your credit
utilization ratio — the
percentage of your credit you're using.
Since the
card history — good or bad — is included in the authorized user's credit report and credit score, it behooves the authorized user to make sure the
card is always paid on time and maintains low credit
utilization (
card balance / limit
percentage).
Credit
card companies use the date at the end of the billing period to calculate your credit
utilization rate (the amount of your credit limit that you're using), expressed as a
percentage.
If the
card had a large credit line, you've just eliminated that available credit and inadvertently increased your credit
utilization percentage.
High
utilization of any one
card or line of credit would be a lesser factor, where one could further optimize their credit score and perceived credit worthiness by lowering the
utilization on a single
card well below a
percentage threshold.
A high credit
card balance can result in a higher credit
utilization ratio, which is the
percentage of outstanding debt in comparison to your available credit line.
To calculate your revolving
utilization percentage, all you need to do is add up all of your credit limits on each of your credit
card accounts and then do the same for all of the balances on each
card.
Plus, if you've accrued large amounts of debt over time or you've come close to maxing out your credit
cards, you may have a high credit
utilization ratio, which is the
percentage of your credit limit you actually use.