I am aware of the benefits of having
overall credit utilization as low as possible (we're aiming for < 20 %) but is there any credit score benefit to the practice of actively using a card and paying it off every month as opposed to not using the card at all?
Not exact matches
Opening a new card can raise your score because it increases your total available
credit, and
as a result, lowers your
overall utilization.
Just
as important
as your payment history is your
overall credit utilization, which the more you charge on your account and it reaches your limit, the lower your
credit score will go.
You can be pretty confident that your combined
credit utilization, where a lower
overall percentage leads to a higher score, will continue to benefit from the addition of those six new
credit limits well into the future,
as you have added to the
credit limit portion of the balance / limit equation while keeping balances low.
The
credit utilization of each card is
as follows: Card 1, 0 %; Card 2, 30 % and Card 3, 29 % while the
overall credit cards
utilization ratio is 18.5 %.
Lastly, do not close your old
credit card account
as this will lower your
overall available
credit which will in turn increase your
credit utilization.
The best solution to this problem is, of course, to try to pay down
as many outstanding bills
as possible, and so lower your
overall credit utilization — the proportion of your available
credit that you are in fact using..
That's because your
credit -
utilization ratio is calculated for balances on individual cards
as well
as overall.
As a result, a high
utilization ratio can lower a person's
overall credit score.
This is known
as their «
credit utilization ratio,» and makes up 30 percent of their
overall credit scores.
In fact, they can help raise your score
as these accounts add to your
credit history and lower your
overall credit utilization, which are two important parts of your
credit score.
Since your
utilization is based on how much you owe on your cards in relation to your
credit limits, having more available
credit means a lower
utilization rate — and thus, a higher score —
as long
as you're not carrying a higher
overall balance along with it.