I pay the full balance on my statement by its due date so that I don't pay any interest. My balance is never $0 on my CR because I charge stuff on my card every month. Even if I pay off what was on the old statement by its due date, a new balance will be on my new statement when it cuts and that will be reported. Now if you don't charge stuff every month on one of your CCs then yes, it will report a $0 balance.
Now there may be times when you may want to overpay want is shown on your statement since you know that what you have charged since the statement cut will take your UTIL higher then you want. For instance, say my last statement was $500 and it is 10% of my Util. and I have charged $1200 since that statement cut. I then PIF, but my new statement will show $1200 and my CR will have 24% util. But if I care about keeping my utilization down under 10%, I would have had to pay an extra $700 on top of the $500 before my new statement cuts so that the balance owed would remain $500. I don't pay interest but the Util remains 10%. This only makes sense if you need your score to stay low that month since you could have floated that extra $700 for a full month without interest.
pdxuser wrote:
I'm having a heck of a time with the quoting, but a few points:- I get why you would want a zero balance on some but not all cards.- Isn't using one card to pay another a bad thing -- robbing Peter to pay Paul?- How would FICO know you've used a card if there's a zero balance on it?- Isn't a FICO score only affected by the util currently on the CR? How would it know last month's util if it can't see that (unless last month's util was the historic high util, which is recorded)? So if I want a loan in 3 months, can't I have whatever util I please this month, then 1% next month and no one would be the wiser?
- The more cards with $0 reported balances, the better, as long as one reports a balance. It's not just a question of util; it's also a question of how many accounts are reporting balances.
- Sorry, not sure which post the robbing Peter to pay Paul bit was responding to.
- It doesn't show on the consumer versions of our credit reports, but the CCC's do report every month whether the card was used or not. If your intracycle balance was the highest it's ever been, even if you've already paid it off, that figure will be posted in the "high balance" box.
- It's true that FICO doesn't track historical util, and technically you could have any util you wanted until a month before a major app. But those of us who have had to dispute reported balances to force CCC's to update our records, and those of us who have barked at the moon waiting for TU to update can tell you that you shouldn't expect that smooth and easy one-month turnaround.
Do your paydown several months ahead, just in case.
"...those of us who have barked at the moon waiting for TU to update..."
...been howling for about 3 months now!
EQ 817, EX 815, TU 813 (Updated 1/5/18: TU 843
