Here is a link to my other post where I expressed my thoughts much better, if you are interested you can take a look – https://lemmy.world/post/37101088
Here is a link to my other post where I expressed my thoughts much better, if you are interested you can take a look – https://lemmy.world/post/37101088
One caveat. You do get dinged on your credit score if you are too responsible with your credit. You get dinged if you don’t carry a balance on your credit card. Credit reports ultimately rate how profitable you are to lenders, not how responsible you are with credit.
Untrue. I’m in the 800s, and all I did was consistently pay off my everyday-use credit cards every month.
Absolutely false:
No they don’t, or else I, who has literally only profited off my credit cards via the combination of never paying interest, and utilizing cash back rewards from regular use, wouldn’t have a credit score in the 800s.
Explain my 800s score, then. They’re making literally negative profit from me.
If someone has one credit card that’s always maxed out, and while they’re always making payments on time, they’re minimum payments, so they’re accruing essentially the most interest they could possibly be accruing, I guarantee that person’s credit score is much worse than mine, even though there is no arguing that this hypothetical person generates way more revenue for the credit card provider. That refutes your assertion from the other direction.
And that’s without even mentioning how significant a negative influence 100% utilization has on the score.
No, you are incorrect.
This is a screenshot directly from a credit report disclosure from a current mortgage application. This type of credit report is much more accurate than the ones you get from a free site, as they are the version of the credit report actually used by a mortgage lender.
I do the same strategy you do. We don’t carry a balance on our cards. Usually the only debt we have is our mortgage. And yet, clear as day, the credit report disclosure clearly indicates that our score took a hit because we don’t carry a balance. I also have a plus 800 credit score, but it would be higher if I made a habit of paying the bank lots of interest income.
Are you paying your cards off before the statement cycle ends, resulting in your statement reading $0 every month? “No recent revolving balances” means that, as far as the credit reporting agencies know, you haven’t been using your card at all for 3+ months (emphasis added)[1]:
You should let the statement cycle end with the balance of whatever you used it for, and then pay it off, anytime between that day and your due date. As long as you pay it off no later than your due date, you’ll still pay no interest, but paying it off before the statement ends prevents the agencies from even realizing that you used the card at all, because the agencies can’t see your actual credit card usage activity. They see only:
No, it wouldn’t. Interest paid is not a factor at all—the credit reporting agencies literally have no way of knowing what portion, if any, of your statement balance is interest, they’re only provided the bottom line total statement balance.
Also, if you’re over 750, any further increase is ‘gravy’ anyway, almost no lender has a tier higher than that. The highest ‘breakpoint’ I’ve ever seen is 780. Even if what you said was accurate, ‘I’m over 800 but it could be higher’ is a distinction without a difference.
And this is only an ‘adverse effect’ insofar as, after that amount of time, you start to be considered similarly someone who doesn’t have those credit cards at all, since as far as they know, you’re using them the same amount as such a person, lol. ↩︎