Never Be Late, Ever

[creditmeister]

Great advice, I just learned the hard way. Now I've set up automatic recurring payments on my CCs to prevent it ever again!

[diabla]

Thanks for bumping this, whoever did!  This should be stickied, if its not already.  You are penalized way too harshly for lates - I'm dealing with lates from 2 years ago!  Even the utility companies return your deposit after 12 months no lates, and inquiries lose impact after 12 months.

I think a lot of people don't equate late with not paying.  Its definitely a certain mindset you have to get into, where paying late is like a deadly sin, lol.

I have set up auto-pay wherever possible, but I'm in my accounts daily anyway so its not difficult to always know what's due.

I did the score simulator or estimator at one of the sites and it showed me anywhere from 80-100 point increase if I can get those lates removed from 2010, so I'm waiting on the response from a GW letter.  

This can't be stressed too many times - NEVER EVER BE LATE!

[brother7]

Recent late payments affect your credit score more than aged late payments, up to about the 2 year mark. However, late payments remain on the credit report for 7 years with the account being reported as a negative account.

Even though my credit score is in the high 700s, I'm looking forward to June, 2015 when my only delinquent account is scheduled to go into positive status.

[vanillabean]

Minimum payments should be mandatory by law. If that overdraws your checking account, so be it!

PS: I happened to stumble over an old thread on automatic payments and agree that the bank shouldn't be assigned the task. What happened to hauling by the way?

[SportBike4Life]

I second automatic payments for the minimum as the best safety measure against late payments and associated fees.