Credit available and utilisation

stokegal

Hi all,

I’ve seen advise given on here and in the MSE credit file guide that as a guide you should have no more than 15k credit available to you and around 25% utilisation.

Does this credit available figure only include CC, loans and retail credit like a very account or will it include overdrafts and car finance?

Also which is more important lowering my credit available or lowering my credit utilisation?

I have around 22k credit available across CC, overdraft and retail credit and have used approx 14k of it. I also have a car finance agreement and sofa on finance (outside of the 22k)

My repayments are manageable and I’m currently smashing through my debt thanks to a LBM a couple of months ago however I want to improve my credit worthiness to try and get a 0% balance transfer card. Would you recommend closing the credit accounts down after paying them to reduce my credit available or leaving them open to reduce my utilisation?

TIA

[Deleted User]

The 15k figure is meaningless. Ignore it. 

Keep all your accounts open, but you need to work on getting your debt down. You could try for a 0% card, but your indebtedness is going to work heavily against you.

Go to the DFW board for advice on reducing your debt.

Thrugelmir

There's never any harm in housekeeping and closing redundant accounts. Lenders use their own criteria to assess credit worthiness. Continue on the same track and matters will resolve themselves. 

stokegal

Thanks guys  - I know I don’t qualify for a balance transfer card at the moment as I did an Eligibilty check and it came back as nope!

That however was before I managed to pay 5k off my debt this month (the figures above are after the 5k paid off this month) 

I’m on the DFW board too and have a good plan of how to pay off my 14k within the next 18 months - it would have just come sooner if I could have balance transferred onto a 0% card - I’m going to carry on paying what I can and then maybe do an eligibility check in another 6 months when my debt will be around 9k