Quote:
Originally Posted by toboramai
I am confused on how my interest is charged on my credit cards, aren't we all?
I have a regular discover and a chase freedom card. If I pay my off my cards in full by the due date every month, I should have no finance charges, correct?
Example:
Statement amount: $200
total charges on CC: $300
Due date of bill: 25 of each month
If I paid it in full ($300) on the 24th, I would never have finance charges, correct?
Thanks in advance!
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I'm still a bit confused by this.
By "statement amount" do you mean total amount charged on the statement or the statement minimum payment?
To avoid all charges, then you need to pay all charges incurred on the credit card during that statement period and anything that might not have been paid in the previous statements.
-- On the other hand, if you added another credit debt of $100 after the credit card's billing statement (not appearing on that statement), then you do not need to prepay for that $100.
Also if you pay on the 24th and they don't receive it until a few weeks later (depending on how you pay -- snail mail? direct bank transfer? etc), then you may be incurring finance charges if they also have a statement that says something like "must be received within 7 days of the due date."
Some go by the date stamped on the envelope, some don't. Some banks have a delay of three of four "business days" to process direct payments as well.
In other words, I wouldn't wait until 1 day before "due" to pay my bills; I try to do them 1 week before that due date. My bank gives me 3-4 business days warning, and there's one payment that has no direct account so they end up taking a week for that payment sometimes (they have to cut a check).