I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

I have a service from myfico.com that watches my credit score. I never had issues with my credit, but I do it to monitor it and make sure nothing is going on that is weird. I wanted it before we purchased a house, to make sure everything was perfect.

Anyway, I had a FICO score of 786 (which I was happy about...I think the highest is an 850 for FICO)..and now it is at 745. It keeps "dropping", but I don't get it. They would drop it because it says that a balance has increased on a credit card, but why does it matter? We never carry a balance, and always pay it off every single month in the entire amount due.

Now I got another alert today saying they dropped my score AGAIN because there is now an increase of 4 grand on one of our cards..but we just bought furniture.

I hate credit cards, but like to use them for big purchases so we get the points. Again, we never carry a balance.

What gives? is this normal? should I turn off my alerts?

Re: I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

When you charge something your income to debt ratio changes. As that ratio changes, so does your credit score.

Re: I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

If you are using more than 50% of your available credit, for any card that can decrease your credit score. A large purchase on a single card with a low limit or one where you maxed out your limit will decrease your score. There are other reasons your score can decrease but since you said you just got furniture this was the first thing that came to mind.

Re: I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

i have the alert too and it makes me nuts.

I'm considering taking it off.

Re: I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

786 before you bought the house? Everyone has 3 different credit scores. They can vary quite a bit, so are you looking at the same bureau?

The score goes down when you open cards, you close cards, your DTI goes up, etc..

Credit score is mostly based on the last 12 months credit history and how much you owe compared to how much you are able to borrow. If you have a 50,000 credit line and owe out under 25,000 you're good, KWIM? If your income supports it, Lol. If you owe out more than 1/2 your score will drop.

A 745 score is good. I wouldn't worry about it.

Re: I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

If you credit limit is raising and you do not carry a balance your DTI(debt to income) ratio should be better which is a portion of your credit score. Too much open credit can lower your score or paying late but overall your score should be good...not sure I get why its getting lower. It should be steady or slightly raising

Re: I usually never worry about credit scores, but put my mind at ease here.

It doesn't matter that you pay it off every month. If the credit card company reports your balance on the 1st of the month (just an example) and you just happen to have made a large purchase on your credit card, then that's the balance that gets reported.

If you don't want your score to fluctuate up and down, then you just have to not use credit at all.

Part of me would want to get rid of the alerts b/c it would make me crazy, but the other part thinks it's a good idea to have the monitoring.

ETA: I wouldn't worry about it unless you are constantly using credit and can't keep up with it.

Message edited 11/25/2010 11:12:32 AM.