ot: credit cards?

[Brandi]

I want to know something about credit?
If you pay your credit card payment on time every month and most of the time I either pay it off or pay way over the minumim payment. My ? is if you don't pay it off but pay more then the min every time does that mess with your credit score. See my husband wants me to pay it off every month. I don't sometimes. Let's say our credit card bill is a $1000.00 I will pay $500.00. Now does that give you bad credit or a low credit score? I could ask a credit card company this ? but they want to make money. Someone told me credit card company's don't like people who pay off every month?

[Blueberry]

You won't HURT your credit score unless you get to past due status. Credit card companies call people who pay off their cards "dead beats" because they aren't making any money off of them

Having more charged on your cards will hurt your "available credit" when a company looks to see how much you owe and what your monthly commitments are. The less you owe the better.

However, I have heard that it's better for your credit (we're improving either way) to have a history of slowly paying off a card over time than to pay it all at once. Don't know whether that's true or not, and it's certainly never stopped me from paying the card when I could - I don't want the possible small benefit in credit score enough to pay the finance charges....

Now my question: Will it hurt my credit score to cancel my "oldest" credit card? I don't carry a balance on anything now, so I'm not worried about harming my available credit, but I am concerned about shortening my "credit history" and losing ground that way...

[Brandi]

Hmmm? good ? I hope someone can answer that one. So if I owe 180$ on a card and let's say i pay it off in $50.oo installments, I go to buy a car, will they look at that 180.00 and go not a good candidate or does a small amount like that not matter? Or say it's like $1000. oo on the card and you paid $500. the month before and you pay it off the next month? I have herd too that have a bit of a balance on a credit card was a good thing to. I don't know why it works that way. We need a credit card bike riding girl to answer our ?

[Steph_in_TX]

The only thing that should affect your credit score is not paying timely or at all. They aren't going to report you because you have the nerve to make large payments or pay them off. Credit card companies certainly don't want you to pay off every month because then they can't charge you all that interest and that's how they make their money. They charge fees to stores that accept credit cards, but the bigger money is from people who carry a balance. We rarely carry a balance on a card, but you can tell they want us to spend, spend, spend as they keep raising our limit. I say pay the turkeys off if you can!

[Brandi]

yea the whole reason I think my husband wants me to pay it off is so the can't collect any interest from us. Same reason he hasn't done our fricken tax stuff yet!!!!!!! sorry sore subject with me.

[Steph_in_TX]

If you close an account, it will still show up on your credit report. It will say something like "account closed by consumer." So it will still show you've had the history.

On the available credit line of thought...it's also said that having too many open accounts, even if they carry zero balance, can potentially cause issues as you have the potential to charge up lots of stuff, which could lead to payment issues.

I know more about credit cards that you'd ever want to know, but most if my knowledge is on the business side of things. Comes from years of accounting for a national retail chain.

[Blueberry]

We rarely carry a balance on a card, but you can tell they want us to spend, spend, spend as they keep raising our limit.

FYI - you can ask that they fix your limit and that they stop sending you those &*$% access checks. I HATE shredding those, and I'm always afraid someone will fish them out of the trash and use them somehow....

I've done this with all of my cards. We just moved, sold the second house (jobs had us holding on to 2) and paid everything off, so I've been doing lots of restructuring...

[Steph_in_TX]

I hadn't thought about fixing the limit. That's a great idea, thanks! We shred everything credit card related...especially after all those years of seeing how our company could get ripped off with credit cards. It's not that hard. Though, I did just see a statistic that showed dumpster diving accounted for a very small percentage of ways to steal identity and credit card info.

[bcipam]

My 2 cent... if you have the ability to pay your card off each month, do so or don't use the credit card. It's just so easy to pay 1/2 one month, then alittle more the next but still using the card and before you know it you have a balance you can't pay off.

I have struggle for 20 years with credit card debt and I hate it, just hate it. Think of all the money you throw away (by paying interest) each month by not paying off the card. I just can't seem to pay enough to get rid of the cards. I'm in that vicious, horrible circle and am drowning!!!!

Your husband sounds like a wise man; I would listen to him!

[Brandi]

[QUOTE=bcipam]My 2 cent... if you have the ability to pay your card off each month, do so or don't use the credit card. It's just so easy to pay 1/2 one month, then alittle more the next but still using the card and before you know it you have a balance you can't pay off.

I have struggle for 20 years with credit card debt and I hate it, just hate it. Think of all the money you throw away (by paying interest) each month by not paying off the card. I just can't seem to pay enough to get rid of the cards. I'm in that vicious, horrible circle and am drowning!!!!

Your husband sounds like a wise man; I would listen to him![/QUOTE
I am sorry you are in credit card hell. I would never let our credit card situation get out of hand though. I pay it off most of the time. i was just wondering if you had a balance for a couple months if that did something to your credit. We don't have much work at the begining of the year so i pay off half sometimes. and then in a month or so usaully pay it off. Good luck with your situation i hope it gets over and done with sometime soon for you!

[Robbin_G]

I, unfortunately, have too much experience with this as mine teeters from average to not so good. One of my cards reports my score to me monthy so I've watched it jump all over the place. I honestly think it maybe different for everyone!! (I was trying to get private student loans and learned all about this very fast.)

Do NOT close your oldest card and do NOT ask for a limit cap. FICO is done on a RATIO of available balance to balance carried. When my score stabilized and one of my existing card went ahead and gave me an increase of $6,000, my score went UP 40 pts the next month.

Each card should carry no more than 30% of the available balance. My friends were in the process of buying a house. They got a balance transfer offer, they threw all of thier cards onto one card. Thier total balance didn't change, just maxed out one. Thier score DROPPED and they screwed up the mortgage they had lined up and thier interest rate INCREASED.

I pay mine in full monthy. However, you may be carrying a large balance when your card reports to the agencies (which they do monthly). That will ping your score. The only thing that will raise your score is having a zero balance when they report. When I had nothing on all 3 cards for 3-4 months, my score jumped 75pts. As soon as I carried a balance, it went down 55. This movement had nothing to do with late payments, because there was none!

If you're not planning to finance anything, you don't ahve to worry about your score. However, cards will do inquirys quarterly and if you have variable interest rate cards, they can raise it if you have a low score.

I hate those access checks. It is just something to shred!