Paying off credit cards every month is a negative

[Anonymous]

I will never carry a balance and pay interest to "satisfy" lenders. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. Paying all my cards off every month. Been doing it for years, and I'm not about to start keeping balances. I pay my gas credit card, my MC & VISA rewards cards and Amex a couple of days early each month. Same thing with my utilities, etc. Never missed a payment...

If the credit reports and scores don't like it, too bad.

Like I said before, in the old days you could write off the interest on anything including credit cards, car loans, etc. Since the tax cuts that began way back all that went away, so I decided why pay the interest when I get nothing for it? Car loans are the biggest ripoff and I haven't had a car loan in ages. I'm not about to start now.

[stan_the_man]

@TJinCA --

I don't think you understand what people are talking about regarding balances.

No one is encouraging you not to pay your balance in full before the due date to avoid interest charges.

In order to get the optimal utilization, many of us pay all or part of our balances before the statement cuts.

For example, let's say I have a limit of $1,000 and I but a TV for $900. Rather than getting hit for 90% utilization, I would pay the balance down to $90 or less before the statement cuts. Then I would pay the rest of the balance in full before the due date.

That way, I would show usage of credit and pay no interest, but I would never report high balances (read: high utilization).

[Anonymous]

Like I said, I don't have the time to play "games" with statement cutoffs, etc. When I get my bills, I log into my online banking, and pay the bills a few days before they are due. The only reason I checked my score was because I have never checked it before and was curious. I was surprisd to find that due to "lack of mortgage or car loans" and the fact that I haven't applied for new credit in a long, long time hurt my score. Mid 700s is nothing to complain about, but I was rather disturbed that paying credit cards in full was not on the "positive" side of the scale.

[haulingthescoreup]

You weren't dinged for not applying for new credit in a long, long time. There isn't a negative scoring factor for that.

We always, always, always advice to NEVER carry balances here, and you're not, and no one has said that you should.

If you want some more points, pay early, but let one account report $10 on the statement, and then pay it off.

If you don't care, then keep doing what you're doing. That's perfectly fine.