this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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That's great. I'm sure you have more than just a credit card, and those other things have a much larger affect on your score. And there's probably a million other variables in there.
I am not going to claim to know the exact formulae used... But it's my understanding that something around ~30% utilization for credit cards is optimal in terms of the agencies giving these scores.
Say all you've got are student loans (that you've been consistently paying back for like a year), and you've got a score of say 600 and you want to try to establish credit.
If you open up a credit card with a $1,000 limit, your score will immediately go down to like ~585 or something, despite the fact that you don't owe any money on that card and have $1,000 more credit available than you did before. Yes, it's fucking stupid.
(I'm admittedly pulling these specific numbers from my ass, but this is nearly exactly what my experience was many years ago).
The hard inquiry for opening that new card lowers your score. The avg age of accounts drops with the new card and that also lowers your score. The $1k credit limit doesn't raise your credit enough to offset the drops but over time the impact of those will wear off and your score will go back above 600.
What the OP in the image probably means is that paying off a non-revolving account (not credit, something like a personal loan or car loan) can drop your score. It will drop more if its a large account because it drops the total value of all accounts or the total value of non-revolving accounts you owe on (not the remaining value, it uses the total for some reason afaik) + your credit limits from cards.
The best way to raise your credit is to just have an assortment of different credit cards, continually pay them off in full, and have some other type of account in the mix like an auto or personal loan that you continually pay off.
Opening all of those at once will tank your credit for a bit because "credit seeking behavior" is a ding against you. That's not an actual term I don't think, but opening a bunch of credit lines at the same time is a bad look and could be a sign of financial distress that scares off lenders. So just start with 1 card and 1 loan then open a new card every 6 mo to 1 yr. Then when you eventually pay off the loan your score may drop anyways so use that time to open a new loan so you offset the impact of the drop.
The system is dumb but it isn't incomprehensible and it's actually possible to game the system a bit. There are companies that offer pre-paid debit cards but they report to the credit agencies as if you have a credit card with like a $1200 limit and they always report that you have a 20% utilization and always pay on time. That way you build credit without ever actually using credit or racking up debt.
The only reason I have a great credit score is because I opened a credit line at 18, and have a house, which I was only able up get because, when we got married, our parents and family helped raise 10k instead of having a large wedding. Add our 20k in savings that we were only able to get because we lived with my parents, and we were able to put a down payment on the house. Thanks to crazy house prices, we look well off. On paper.
We have less than 1k in savings, so any surprise bill or breakdown might have us having to take a loan. I've been learning how to fix and repair everything we own. Basically me, every time something breaks. I spent the last 6 months doing maintenance on our 2 vehicles. Transmission filters, brakes, radiator coolant, diff oil, etc. I realized I've become my grandpa who drove a 35 year old POS, but kept it running well.
I seriously don't know how us regular ppl are supposed to better our lives when everything is predatory and something as simple a credit score fucks you.