Quote:
Originally Posted by WarChild
I don't think this part is correct.
I know from personal experience of paying of my credit cards each month that the balance is reported to my credit report before I make the payment on the card. I think you'd have to pay the balance off before they issue the statement to have it come out as $0. At least that has been my experience in Canada.  |
Right... And the main point is the credit card company doesn't see this as a positive. Or the car loan company... or the home loan company... They see it as:
Total credit extended
- Total not available
----------------------
= you get less, not more.
If you have 1 card you use to do your business on perhaps, this is just fine. But if you are new to credit and don't understand what is going on and therefor have 5 cards with $100 balanced on each, there is a criteria just for that... People that go down hard are more likely to have that $100 on all 5 cards instead of have that $500 on one...
Another thing... Having $500 right here... right now... and then paying it off is the exact same as never having had it before... get it? So "appearing" to "use" credit for a better score is absurd... When you buy a house and have $25,000 to put down, but have $1,200 on credit cards guess what they do? Tell you to pay the cards and put $23,800 down on the house... This is because you could get a tenth of a percentage point knocked off the loan for having no minimum payment owed to your credit card.
So again.. the bottom line is... Don't use your card and if you are going to use one for business for a paper trail for taxes or some shit, just use one. In fact, get chummy with that one and they are more likely to get chummy with you... After it bumps up from $3K to $8K extended over time, do the same with another $3K card and they will bump you up over time also... If you have good credit...