Achieving ideal credit card utilization above 0%

The only time I had a reported zero balance was when I paid in full the day the bill was cut. The bill itself was zero, the utilization was zero. It was an experiment, and cost me 20 FICO points, if I recall correctly.

Since then I pay the bill in full after the bill is cut. My only issue on the high end is when that card went to 90% utilization. Again, just one month, a 10 point ding. Since I know about both extremes, I'd ignore them unless I needed to borrow, say on a new mortgage. Then I'd prepay the card to get to 1% utilization, so the balance would impact my borrowing ability. This is theoretical, of course. I am old, retired, and with a 3.5% mortgage, I don't expect the opportunity to refinance at a better rate.

Note, as Ben commented, the utilization effect is very temporary. It's literally a snapshot. So the next snapshot will update and change the score a month later. I confirmed this after both my zero and high utilizations. Back to prior scores after a month. For this reason, it's worth noting as the comments to the questions suggest, there's no need to obsess over this metric at all. The 20-30 point swing only comes into play when applying for new credit. Otherwise, it's just a number.

I have 2 active cards I use, and both report the same balance as the bill. Others have said they've seen their accounts report during the billing cycle. I recommend using a site like Credit Karma to see how your card(s) report.

Update: Here is an example of the swing that a simple even can cause. My billing cycle has a statement date of the 15th. But the card reports at month end. In the December cycle, I used the card to make my year end cash donations, but let the 31st pass without making a payment (as the prior bill was paid in full and new one is cut on 1/15). This was the result -

Also note, no new credit pull, nothing late. The utilization went from 2% to 20%. I have no need to apply for anything, the next cars in the family will be cash purchases. The 20% was an experiment to text the impact on (Credit Karma's version of) my score. They say it's "Calculated using VantageScore 3.0". We'll see if it bounces back 100% when the cards are down to 1% again. Honestly, I was expecting 15-25 points drop, not 65.