Looking for advice...

[Anonymous]

Charge it up to its limit, (or however much you want) and pay all but $15 of the balance a few days before the statement is sent out. Once you get the statement, then you can pay the remaining balance. Lather, rinse, repeat. You can alternate cards every few months so each one 'sees' the usage.

By charging the card up, then paying it off within a few days, you actually generate income for the CC company (through vendor fees). That tends to encourage them to raise your limits.

I have two Cap One cards as well, and I manage mine online. Very convenient.

[NewBegin_55311]

Thank you VERY much for the help, and more so for being patient with me. I think I'm grasping it, but just to clarify here is my online monitoring screen shot:

So, in this case I'd make a charge of up to $3,500 on 11/24/14, pay all but $349.00 and wait for...? I don't receive mailed statements any longer so I'm not sure what the carry over a balance date would be.

Thanks again!!

[Anonymous]

OK, so it looks like your statement 'cut date' is the 26th of the month., so what you would do is charge however much you want to, make as many payments during the month as you want and then pay all but 9% (or less) of your limit (9% of $3500 limit would be $315) by the 20th of the month (reporting to the CRA is ordinarily within three days of the statement date). Let that amount 'sit there' until a few days after the 26th - maybe till the 30th - and then pay it as well. As long as you pay it within the grace period, usually ten days after the statement date, there will be no interest charge on it.

On your credit report FICO will 'see' usage each month and a low balance of less than 10%. That will give you a good score.

[NewBegin_55311]

Got it, thanks so much Norman!

I used my card (the one in the screen shot above) just now. I only charged $60.00 to it but I'm hoping a balance shows up here in the next day or two so that I carry it this month. Or maybe I missed the cut-off?

[Anonymous]

Probably just missed the statement cutoff. Pull a TU report in a few days to check.

[NewBegin_55311]

I don't have the option to pull a full report at any time, but I do pay myFICO the $20 a month to see all 3 scores. Is there something I can do to check with the service I have?

[LifeSAVERS]

One of the things that I do for my cards now is charge normal out of pocket accounts and than pay off the card.  These are monthly household bills that would come out of my cash flow each month anyway. Such as groceries, phone, internet, city utilities (ours does not charge a fee to use a credit card as some do), antivirus subscriptions etc. Than I pay the balance down to within 10% of the card CL and let it report.  If you want to add to your mix for retail, you might check WalMart and Victoria Secret or some of the others that have their offers at checkout for instant approval of their card.  There are discussion groups on here regarding the instant approval. You will possibly see a small change to your credit score as your average years of all credit will decrease with new credit, but that is temporary and will diminish over time.