Balance Reporting Question

[VeggieTales]

So i've looked at some old posts on the subject but I'm still confused. If anyone can help clarify this for me, that would be awesome. 

I always pay my cards off in full so I end up with $0 balances being reported, which isn't ideal if I want some sort of utilization to factor into my FICO scores. Assuming my cards are out of the intro 0% APR phase, how do I get a balance to be reported without having to pay interest on the leftover from a balance? 

E.g. If I had a $200 balance on my Macy's card that has a limit of $500. The due date is the 18th every month. I pay off the $200 balance before the due date. The statement cuts on the 20th with a zero balance. If I used the card on the 19th, would the balance I incur on that date be reported on the statement? Would I still be charged interest? 

[Elcid89]

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@VeggieTales wrote:

So i've looked at some old posts on the subject but I'm still confused. If anyone can help clarify this for me, that would be awesome. 

I always pay my cards off in full so I end up with $0 balances being reported, which isn't ideal if I want some sort of utilization to factor into my FICO scores. Assuming my cards are out of the intro 0% APR phase, how do I get a balance to be reported without having to pay interest on the leftover from a balance? 

E.g. If I had a $200 balance on my Macy's card that has a limit of $500. The due date is the 18th every month. I pay off the $200 balance before the due date. The statement cuts on the 20th with a zero balance. If I used the card on the 19th, would the balance I incur on that date be reported on the statement? Would I still be charged interest? 

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Lenders report what the balance is on the day that they report. It's a snapshot of that particular point in time only.

In other words, if you charge up a card, then pay off the balance before the reporting date, when that reporting date comes along, your account shows a zero balance on that day and that is what gets reported.

If you want a balance to be reported, then you need to figure out what day Macy's reports (you should be able to see this on your credit report) and ensure that you delay your payment until at least the day after that day, so that when they report you will actually have a balance to be reported.

That said, you want to keep utilization at a maximum of 20%, so in your example, you shouldn't allow a balance of more than $100 to report on that card, and that's the maximum that you should allow. Lower is better.

[distantarray]

most good credit cards have a thing called a grace period. For Amex it's 25 days. So even if your statement cuts on the 20th and you bought something on the 19th even if the balance reports you have nothing to worry about the interest. Every company differs so do a little research if Macy's has a Grace period. I'm pretty sure Bank of America does not (greedy SOBs) correct me if I'm wrong though.

Also a interesting thing is bobwang a credit guru on another website (his EQ Fico is 819 last we saw) he did a spreadsheet and found from research from others with their credit that if your account reports at 2% this is the ideal for your scores. Also even if you get charged interest at 24% which is on the Macy's website even if your credit limit was $10,000  remember that APR means annually so that's only around 2% a month. If you max out your $500 Macy's credit card you'd only be looking at a finance charge of $10. It's not bad as long as you don't carry it over for the entire year. 

Even if you maxed out your card every statement for 1 year your interest would be $164 a year (not $140 since interest is added from previous interest) Of course it's not good to pay interest but feel free to leave anywhere between 10-20 on if you really want. Intrests at that level are pretty low. (48 cent interest on $20)

[firstladyd]

Sorry no answer for your? ?? Just luv your screen name. Veggie Tales is fav @our house.