You know, like “always split on 18,” or “having kids is the most rewarding thing you can do in life.”
What’s that one bit of advice you got from a trusted friend that you know deep, deep down would just ruin your thing?
You know, like “always split on 18,” or “having kids is the most rewarding thing you can do in life.”
What’s that one bit of advice you got from a trusted friend that you know deep, deep down would just ruin your thing?
I’m confused - you pay off almost all of your credit card and you’re “spending even more money in the long run”. Why not just pay off all of it? Surely if you were able to afford your bills with cash, you’d be able to pay off your credit card in full every month since the bills would be the same?
Yeah. It works if you pay everything off.
If you want good credit, you don’t pay it all off. You need recurring payments over time. If I pay it all off at once, then my credit score doesn’t go up much at all. But if there’s a constant debt on my card and I’m never late in paying at least the minimum required each month, then my credit score skyrockets quickly.
This is why the system is garbage. You need to spend more money to show you’re excellent at managing money. It’s a dumb system that makes no sense.
I pay almost everything off because it minimizes the interest I have to pay while keeping a line of credit running on the card. But it’s important to keep that line of credit active, or else your credit score stagnates.
Isn’t that just not true?
https://www.capitalone.com/learn-grow/money-management/credit-myths/
I pay my credit cards in full every month and accrue zero interest and have excellent credit…
I’ve got a high credit score and I’ve never not paid it off in full. It’s only really ever went up over the years, with the occasional tiny 1-3 digit drop. I’d never pay interest I don’t need to in exchange for a higher rating; they’ve got enough money.
Yeah no. Pay the entire statement balance every month, that’s the whole point. If you want to do debt stuff I guess you can get a mortgage or a car loan or a school loan, but these are not requirements for good credit. You use the card, you pay the card, you now have 100% on time payments and probably low credit utilization. Get a card early so average account age high if you can, and don’t get lots of hard credit checks in a row.
You can literally get free credit checks through most banks or directly from places like Experian and see what it is that affects your particular score.
Don’t pay 18 or 25% interest on anything, that’s nutty.
Only pay off what is due, not the full balance. So if I spent 100 on my cc last month and then 100 this month. My bill is for 100, but my balance is 200. Pay the 100, incur no interest.
Edit: by “what is due” I mean the full balance from the previous month, not the minimum payment.
You can just pay it all off unless you plan on making some I interest money from the second 100.
Every month on the same day I drive all the card balances to zero. 800+ credit score
Absolutely you can, but not paying it all off doesn’t negatively affect your score. Also 800+ here.