@Anonymous wrote:
By this I mean that I use all my cards regularly, but I pay them off immediately, and try to stay at 0% utilization. I’ve asked all my card issuers, and they have told me they report a 0 balance, but I’m wondering if this will hurt me like how not using a card would. I very actively use my cards and plan out when to pay them so I get them payed off through the app before the report date
It depends on what your goals are. If you want to not have revolving debt, paying your credit cards off before their Statement Close/Reporting dates is a sound strategy. However, there's a cost to that strategy as I'll explain below:
1. The first "cost" is the impact of your strategy on your FICO score. Not having any cards reporting balances to the credit bureaus will lower your FICO scores by roughly 20 points since it would appear to the scoring algorithm that you do not use any credit. A better strategy is to allow one card to report a small balance, then pay off that balance before the Payment Due date so no interest is incurred. This technique is referred to in these forums as AZEO or All Zero Except One.
2. Secondly, not allowing any cards to report balances to the credit bureaus can negatively impact you when applying for additional credit cards or increasing your current credit limits. Each lender keeps their own internal records so they will know how much you are using their cards. But other lenders don't have access to that information and rely on what is on your credit report(s). If your credit reports show no balances, a lender might assume that you aren't utilizing your current credit and could be reluctant to grant you new credit, or an increase in credit limits.
Go Blue!