Credit Cards

[mjbfan79]

Hooters- $500 CL

HSBC- $400 CL

Wal- Mart $300 CL

Total Visa- $250 CL

First Premier- $250 CL

I was thinking of using all the cards everyone months just make sure i stay around the 10% usage mark on each card or should i leave 1 or 2 cards with a 0 Balance. I'm trying to improve my credit score.

[cobra19]

What works best for me (as determined by trial and error) is to have 30% of my cards show a zero balance every month and the remaining cards show a balance of < 3%  - but not $0.

So, if I had 5 cards I'd want 2 of them to show a zero balance and the other 3 to show a balance of  < 3%.

[mjbfan79]

Ok thx for the info.

[cobra19]

mj.............many folks say < 10% utility.  As I noted before, I have found the number of < 3% utility as the point where I realize highest scores.

You would see jumps at 49%, 29%, 19% and 9%.

[mjbfan79]

Well at first it's gonna be hard for me not to use them all but i will most def stay around the 10% Mark with each card i'm sure that will help right.

[debtisgood]

cobra,

It probably depends what scoring bucket you are in, but many of the forum members with the top scores find they get the highest score by having only one card report a balance around 1-3%. When you get to worry about this level you are probably only quibbling over 5-7 points though.

[mjbfan79]

Well how bout if i use just 2  a month an leave the other 3 with a 0 Balance this stuff is confusing lol

[haulingthescoreup]

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mjbfan79 wrote:

Well at first it's gonna be hard for me not to use them all but i will most def stay around the 10% Mark with each card i'm sure that will help right.

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Use them, but treat them as if they were debit cards. Don't put a charge on unless you know that you have money in the bank to cover that charge.

Many of us PIF our cards every Friday or every two weeks (payday!) to keep the balance from getting too high to kill off easily. If you do this, and you have the available money, you can run 3X your CL and more through a card every month, and still have it report with $0.

How many (if any) loans and mortgages do you have? The reason that many of us have so many cards reporting $0 is that we have several loans, which always report balances since they're open, and we need CC's with $0 balances to "cancel" out the loans. (Strange but true.)

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Just saw your latest post, and that's a good approach. You can even use just one card at a time (the Card of the Month club!) and rotate them through. Just make sure that all of them get used frequently enough to keep the CCC from closing them for inactivity.

[mjbfan79]

Sup haulingthescoreup

I have one car loan that's it.

Funny thing you said use them as a Debit cause i was thinking about that today an kind of came up with that thought. So if i don't have the money in the bank to cover the charge don't use them.

Message Edited by mjbfan79 on 07-01-2008 05:32 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

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mjbfan79 wrote:

Sup haulingthescoreup

I have one car loan that's it.

Funny thing you said use them as a Debit cause i was thinking about that today an kind of came up with that thought. So if i don't have the money in the bank to cover the charge don't use them.

(emphasis mine --hauling)

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You have just discovered the secret of how to use credit!

I used to drive my kids insane by droning, "Credit (and money) is a great servant, but a terrible master." If you treat your cards like debit cards , credit will be your servant.

With this approach, when you need serious credit one day, like a mortgage, you'll be in a great position for a great rate.