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Mixed Blessing: Finally got a 'ding' for having a $0 balance on all my cards

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gamegrrl
Frequent Contributor

Mixed Blessing: Finally got a 'ding' for having a $0 balance on all my cards

I still use a few of my cards, one of them regularly (Amazon card) and some of them just a couple of times a year (Best Buy).

 

Yeah, I pay them off asap, and that usually means as soon as the balance is payable on their website. 

 

I suppose I need a spreadsheet or something so that I know the statement close date and the due date for every card. Guessing the key here is to pay off after the statement closes but before the due date.

 

So time consuming!


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Revelate
Moderator Emeritus

Re: Mixed Blessing: Finally got a 'ding' for having a $0 balance on all my cards


@gamegrrl wrote:

I still use a few of my cards, one of them regularly (Amazon card) and some of them just a couple of times a year (Best Buy).

 

Yeah, I pay them off asap, and that usually means as soon as the balance is payable on their website. 

 

I suppose I need a spreadsheet or something so that I know the statement close date and the due date for every card. Guessing the key here is to pay off after the statement closes but before the due date.

 

So time consuming!


Hah, no doubt about the mixed blessing.

 

Personally I find I have 3ish cards that receive fairly regular use, and everything else simply gets trotted out a once a month or for specialized purchases.

 

Everything I have so far closes between the 6th and the 18th of every month, so I simply pay everything along with my rent on the 1st, and then simply let my balance cards accure through natural spending.  Only real annoyance I find is transactions that take sometimes an obnoxiously long time to post... but regardless, I haven't had to resort to a spreadsheet yet thankfully.

 

That all said, there's only a few times where I actually truely care about my precise utilization; beyond preparations for applications, it's not that big of a deal to me if my utilization bounces somewhat over "optimal" ranges or I let too many cards report.  Not typically a long-term penalty.

 

The wonky one is DCU which I swear is reporting the balance on the 1st of the month on my accounts; have yet to track that down explicitly yet. Smiley Happy   Also I think some lenders will allow you to change your payment/statement dates too, that may be worth looking into if you have lots of tradelines and just consolidate them to a single day.

 




        
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