When trying to improve your credit score, what counts more, zero balance or 10% balance of credit li

I%26#039;m selling my home and building a new one. God willing, I%26#039;ll make some profit, and with this profit, I want to improve my credit score as best I can. I know this: don%26#039;t close or open new accounts and don%26#039;t pay late. If I have limited funds to pay credit cards, should I pay off the most I can or should I pay off those cards that I%26#039;ve had the longest?

When trying to improve your credit score, what counts more, zero balance or 10% balance of credit limit?

It is interesting how the formulas work for calculating credit scores.

Make more then the minimum payment but make payments not pay offs. If you have some extra money, put it in a bank savings account and then get a bank loan against that and make payments on that on time. Even just $1000 loan.

Bank loans are factored differently than credit cards.

Get some help from attorneys who specialize in this.

When trying to improve your credit score, what counts more, zero balance or 10% balance of credit limit?

I don%26#039;t think it matters. I%26#039;d either pay off a card with a lower balance (just because it would feel good to have one fewer card to pay on) or I%26#039;d pay the most to the card with the highest interest rate. I%26#039;d also make sure none of my cards was approaching its credit limit.

Your credit score looks at the ratio of amount owed to available credit in total. This means if you have five cards with a total credit line of $50,000, and you owe a total of $30,000 on all these cards, your ratio is 60% (30,000/50,000). I don%26#039;t think it matters if two cards have a zero balance and the other three have $10,000 each vs. each card having a $6,000 balance.

When trying to improve your credit score, what counts more, zero balance or 10% balance of credit limit?

You can pay off some of your credit cards but - while you%26#039;re doing that, you cannot neglect even for 1 payment not to pay the other one you have loan from. That will create a monster on your history. The best is pay all of them every month, and when you have extra, pay off the card that you don%26#039;t want to use anymore. I don%26#039;t know if credit consolidation is appealing to you, this is when you put all your debts in one card so you only have one to worry about. There%26#039;s additional cost to you on doing this though.

When trying to improve your credit score, what counts more, zero balance or 10% balance of credit limit?

the 10% can...do not cancel your cards. old cards still open and active look great on one%26#039;s credit report. so stick with your four or five cards to get the high credit limit, but only use 10% at the most

When trying to improve your credit score, what counts more, zero balance or 10% balance of credit limit?

For a given level of credit card debt, your score will improve the most if you distribute the debt fairly evenly among many cards. For someone with two cards, it will look better to potential lenders to have both cards at 50% of their credit limit rather than having one maxed out and the other with a zero balance.

If the difference in balances isn%26#039;t too extreme, I would say that other considerations become more important than strictly dividing the debt as evenly as possible. Paying off some of the cards completely gives you a more manageable number of bills to pay each month. If one card has a much higher interest rate than the others, paying it down first will save lots of interest and help you pay your debt faster. That in turn will lead to even better credit scores down the road.