[alistairSH]

Not only do banks and credit agencies provide a "recipe" for improving your score, most do so free of charge (for existing customers).

For example, I know my score swings by +/-30 points/month. I'm fairly confident that is due to the balance on my CCs varying when the score is calculated (there is nothing else about my financial situation changing - same house for a decade, same car loan for 5 years, no new credit lines/loans, etc). But, I pay the cards off every month, and the score always rebounds.

[jjav]

> I'm fairly confident that is due to the balance on my CCs varying when the score is calculated

Yes. It feels wrong that the current balance of credit cards is considered debt. It should only be considered debt once (if) you start paying interest on it. So if you pay it off fully every month, it shouldn't be seen as debt.

But whatever, they consider it debt so it can make the credit score swing up and down a lot. I see this every late summer when I pay my childs school bill for the upcoming year on a credit card. It is a very large amount so suddenly my credit utilization goes up and my credit score drops around ~70 points. Then a month later I pay it off and the credit score goes back up the same ~70 points.

[matwood]

Mine swings monthly for the same reason, though not as much. The report I get tells me why it swings ('used credit balance').

[alistairSH]

Yeah, I was surprised at how much it swings, but it's high enough it shouldn't matter (and easy enough to not use the cards for a month, let it rebound, then borrow whatever I need to borrow).

The report from my bank never says why. It does list factors that contribute to my score, but they're all "good" (low usage as % of available, all payments on time, etc). And never change.

[matwood]

I'm signed up for all the credit bureaus free accounts so I can freeze/unfreeze my credit. They send out reports monthly, along with one of my CCs. All of them have the reason. And yeah, the score is ~800 so it doesn't really matter. Still interesting to see how it moves with relatively small balance changes.