Money Tips: For Best Credit Score Pay Credit Card Balance in Full

Written by carnold
Posted On: November 8, 2006

Guest: multiplierx
Credit Expert (100+ Posts)
Post subject: For Best Credit Score Pay Credit Card Balance in Full
Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 5:23 pm

In my experience, 0 is best for score. After watching your credit reports for a few months you’ll know when creditors report, at least within a range of a few days. I keep those dates on a ledger.

Amex in particular reports a month behind, i.e. this month they’ll post last months balance. The rest of mine report real-time.

I generally PIF before the statement cuts on all my cards.

The only downside to that is on a manual review looking at your monthly balances, it’ll look like you never use credit. Now that I’m not so concerned about scores, I’ll probably tweak my approach a bit and have 1 or 2 report a balance every month.

Guest: Board Monitor
Board Monitor/ Administrator
Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 8:46 pm

Brammy wrote:
I think Liz Pullam had an article on msn money about just such practices.

You are correct. Interesting read. Don’t have the link, but you can google it I’m sure. I like Liz!
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Guest: Ira
SENIOR MEMBER (Member for 2 yrs.+)
Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 12:34 am

Quote:
If like me monitoring has a long term purpose he should be concerned with his score. The reason I monitor:

1. Initially to qualify for a lower interest mortgage (done)
Do you take your pulse frequently both before and after exercise? Do you monitor your heart rate and breathing ate on a daily basis? You don’t? why not? Isn’t your health important? Oh, you practice good nutritional habits and get plenty of exercise so you know you’re healthy and don’t need to monitor your body frequently.

Folks, it’s the same thing with credit. Use your credit wisely, don’t go on wild spending sprees, pay in full all the time, don’t rent money, and your score will reflect your good habits. You don’t need to constantly pay good money to monitor your credit score. I have no idea what my score is, but I have no trouble whatsoever getting all the credit I apply for. If I did know my score it wouldn’t change my purchasing and payment habits one bit.

Contrary to a popular saturation radio commercial, knowing your score and having it with you when you apply for a loan gives you no advantage whatsoever. The lending agency will base their decision on a commercal report which they will obtain at their expense, not on the piece of paper you downloaded from a web site.
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Guest: gcredit
Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 1:42 am

Ok perhaps I should explain my situation…
My goal is building up my credit so I can get a morgage with the best rate possible. I only have 2 CC 1 does not have a balance and the other will have after this month I am putting all Christmas gifts on it, as far as the finance charges go I won’t have any because it is 0 % APR untill May 1st 2007 and I will PIF before that date.
If I put say 1000 dollars on a card and PIF and my balance reports as 0 then “I didn’t get credit for spending and Paying the 1000 dollars”. So my score dosen’t change much. OR….
Spend 1000 dollars Pay 200 for 3 months then PIF.
Score before 1000 dollars -670 (Example)
PIF 1000 dollars -670
Leave balance score may go down say 10 points -660
after paying 200 then PIF total score climb-40 points
40-10=30 so my score wen’t from 670 to 700
I’m not 100 % on this but I have done some “smaller expierments” and I do believe it works similar to this.
Sorry so long… If anyone has feedback please post… Constructive Critisim Welcome…..thanks gcredit