Home  Finance Articles  Discussion  Our Blog / Member Blogs           
SavingAdvice.com Logo Debt Reduction 101
Common sense tactics to reduce your debt
Teaching you to Save Money

Go Back   Personal Finance Forums > Financial Chit Chat > Personal Finance

Personal Finance Credit cards, home loans, retirement plans and taxes. The place for all your personal finance questions.

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
  #1 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2008, 03:29 PM
mindwozzle mindwozzle is offline
$ Saving Kindergartener
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 3

Points: 40.00
Donate
Default Credit Card Balance/Credit Score

I have a credit card (balance limit $3200) that I regularly charge $600/month to on average (range $400-900). I always pay the statement balance in full, and have never been late or missed a payment, so I never pay a finance charge. Do the credit score calculations just take into account the monthly statement balance and late payments or do they look at your finance charges and if you just make minimum payments as well?
Reply With Quote
  #2 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2008, 03:49 PM
maat55 maat55 is online now
$ Saving College Junior
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,424

Points: 7670.00
Donate
Default

There are 3 things main things that make up your score.

1. Length of time you have had available credit.
2. How much total credit available compared to how much you are using, debt to credit ratio basically.
3. Payment history. do you pay on time?

Paying interest has little or no affect on your score.
Reply With Quote
  #3 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2008, 04:16 PM
myrdale myrdale is offline
$ Saving Jr. High Schooler
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 99

Points: 555.00
Donate
Default

Your credit score is something between a snap shot of that one moment when they ran your credit check, and a history of your account. There are a couple of items they look at for your credit accounts:

First, have you made your payments on time. This will be no problem for you as you have always payed on time. If you had missed a payment though, the longer it has been, the less the effect would be.

Second what is the ratio of debt to available credit at the time.

If you have just sent your payment of $900 in on your card, and the payment had not been processed yet, your score will be slightly lower than it would be a couple days from now once your payment has been credited to your account.

One way to increase your credit score is to increase your credit limit, say moving it from $3200 to $5000. $900 is a smaller ratio of $5000 than that of $3200 obvisiouly. Or have a second card.

Now that said I read somewhere "One account kept paid off will do you far more good than a pocket full of visas."

As long as your making your payments on time every month, paying in full to boot!, I wouldn't be to overly concerned. If you know your about to be applying for a loan for a car / mortgage, it couldn't hurt at all though to make sure your credit card balance is zero before applying.

Hope that helps!

***Edit, yes they look at lenght of credit history as Maat55 mentioned above aswell.. They look for the oldest account.
Reply With Quote
Reply



Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 03:19 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
SEO by vBSEO 3.0.0 RC6 © 2006, Crawlability, Inc.
More Links Home Loan | Debt Consolidation Loans | Refinance Home Mortgage | Finance Options

About Us | Advertising | Privacy Policy | Link To Us | Related Resources | Webmasters | Media | Site Map | Contact Us

Copyright ©2002-2008 SavingAdvice.com. All rights reserved.

Please read our Disclaimer

 

Featured Sponsors
IVA uk definitive guide
Bad Credit Loans
IVA Forum
IVA Book
Private Student Loans
Credit Cards
Payday Loans
moving
Student Loans
Online Shopping
Dell Coupons
Cash Loans
Credit Card Processing
Back to School
Apply Now for Personal Loans

Partners
Debt Reduction
Budget Stretcher
DivaTribe
Thrifty Fun
Money Talk
Online Personal Budgeting
Budget Dial