<prompt> Human: We have approximately 17k in credit card and installment loan debt that my wife and I have been working on paying down to increase our credit score for a future home purchase. We made a lot of mistakes that we have since learned how to correct going forward. We understand how scores go up and down with history and utilization, we have excellent history our utilization is obviously high given the amount of debt. My question is would it be better for our scores to pay all the debt off in one large payment or to spread it out over a few months of smaller payments? We have the ability to do both we just are not sure which woulkd benefit our scores more. Thank you for your help Reddit!  <response>: Utilization has no history. Only the most recent reported utilization affects your credit score. That being said, you probably want to pay it down as quickly as possible because of the high interest rates credit cards have. 