Originally Posted by
Ancien Maestro
I pay my cc's completely off monthly never carrying a balance.
Someone told me once that if you carry a balance and just made the minimum payment, your credit score would be higher..
Never done this method.. always paid off my cc before the deadline.. hopefully 15 years of paying off cc's in full have paid off.
The way I get the highest score is to pay them all before the statement date (so they report zero balance) except for one card. My FICO score is the highest when only one card reports a balance. It drops 10 points if I pay all the cards before they report so I show 0% utilization. 1% utilization gives a slightly higher score than 0%.
Carrying a balance and paying interest will not give anyone a higher score. You don't get points for that. But you do want to let at least one card report before you pay it, that is if you are trying to maximize your FICO for some reason that month.