PIF at beginning of month for non-primary accounts?

[Anonymous]

I have 1 main credit card account and 3 cards I keep around to help build credit (more accounts showing I pay on time, etc).  I recently just pulled my credit score for the first time, and found that a negative against me is that I have 4 accounts with balances .  Now, the 3 non-primary accounts have very small balances that I pay off when the bill comes, but it's still a negative.  Therefore, I'm wondering if I should charge something at the beginning of the month and then pay it off immediately.  Will that increase my FICO score?  Will it make a difference if I apply for a loan and now all of a sudden the report shows that I only have 1 account with a balance while the other 3 have none?

[Scamp]

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tyl998 wrote:
I have 1 main credit card account and 3 cards I keep around to help build credit (more accounts showing I pay on time, etc).  I recently just pulled my credit score for the first time, and found that a negative against me is that I have 4 accounts with balances .  Now, the 3 non-primary accounts have very small balances that I pay off when the bill comes, but it's still a negative.  Therefore, I'm wondering if I should charge something at the beginning of the month and then pay it off immediately.  Will that increase my FICO score?  Will it make a difference if I apply for a loan and now all of a sudden the report shows that I only have 1 account with a balance while the other 3 have none?

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Welcome to the Forums, tyl998!

If you haven't done so already, please read at least the first post of Credit Scoring 101, as that will give you some solid background information which will help you understand what you read here on the boards.

As for your credit card payment tactics and how they affect your scores, folks seem to get max FICO points by gearing their cc paying habits to their statement dates and/or account reporting dates (usually one and the same, but different in a few cases such as AmEx, US Bank and 1 or 2 others) to control the reported balances on their CR's and therefore their utilization (debt-to-available credit ratio), since low util makes for happy FICO scores.

Most CCCs report your account balance as of your statement date, and most do the actual reporting to the credit bureaus ON your statement date as well (again - a few exceptions).

So, in general, the trick is to either PIF before your statement/reporting date every month or to pay down to a tiny percentage of your overall credit limit (all zero balances can actually hurt your scores, so it pays to let at least one report a balance, unless you only have 1 or 2 cc's), let that tiny percentage report, then PIF once your statement cuts to avoid paying any interest.

FICO scores love to see what appear to be minimally-used credit cards!

Hope this helps, and welcome again.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the welcome!  Yes, I have perused the thread you linked.  Now, is the Statement Date the Due date or the date they mail me the statement?  I'll need to track down all of the dates.  I don't keep track much because I actually do all of my payments electronically.

[Scamp]

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tyl998 wrote:
Thank you for the welcome!  Yes, I have perused the thread you linked.  Now, is the Statement Date the Due date or the date they mail me the statement?  I'll need to track down all of the dates.  I don't keep track much because I actually do all of my payments electronically.

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Your Statement Date is the date your statement is generated; your Due Date is when your payment is due.

If you use online banking, it should be easy to just go into your Statement Archives and see the dates listed there.  Mine do vary slightly, and CCC's have been known to change them significantly on their own (Chase did this a while back but gave customers the option to change it back to what was best for them), so it pays NOT to just 'set it and forget it' with auto-pay - always check frequently to make sure your Statement and/or Due Dates have not shifted around.