My credit score has gone up 150 pts this year as I practice what this man preaches. I have a spreadsheet with balances and credit reporting dates on all 16 of my cards. Thanks for great videos!
That's great! Do you mind sharing your spreadsheet so I can have an idea about the setup? Sounds very useful. Maybe posting a download link for the file.
Great video! I actually pay my cards weekly too. I have an obsession to get my statement to cut as close to zero as possible. Also helps me treat my cards like a debit card and not spend what I don't have.
Smart! I pay mine every 2 to 3 days immediately as the merchandise posts to my account for payment. I’m obsessed with treating my card like a debit card.
The way I keep track of all my statements, I use the calendar on my android phone (also can be done on iPhone). I set an alert two days in advance that the current month statement is about to close and pay it off completely. Every month the alert repeats and I also check all of my accounts weekly.
Great info I pay my cards every Friday and it has helped me increase my scores to over 760 this method keeps me on top of all my spending and make me has a utilization of 3%.
Everyone that is playing this credit card points game the right way has a certain level of self control and self governance above most people. The game and hobby do reward you for having this trait in your personality. I told my father the other day that its like having the ability to buy anything you want but not really because you dont have the money or have to be responsible towards other things. Some of us have lots of purchasing power but its ultimately just a numbers game. Your balances, credit scores, which card to use and when, etc.
+SolidLiquidFox This is soo true !! this credit card game changed me ( it's depressing sometimes but rewarding ). A strong mindset is no fun. ( fighting to maintain a hight score, credit inquiries, points for best credit cards and expenses, paying on time to avoid interests lol..) and beyond all that, i'm a vegan. Now i know why *Thinking* is the Toughest job in life.
You are absolutely right, Solidliquidfox, but for me its motivation for me to be the best that I can be and to climb the ladder to a better score and better increases and I love the attention and respect that comes with good credit to me it's like being a champion and refusing to give that position up that is my motivation
I've been pre-paying my credit cards for years now just because it's an easier way to keep track of my spending. I didn't know there was even a name for it though I just found it was an easier way to avoid over spending and paying interest. I also have a spreadsheet that I use to track all my investments on every Sunday so it also just made sense to pay all my bills every Sunday too.
Hi Sebby again I want to thank you for everything that you are teaching me. I'm 64 years old retired U.S. Navy and this is all new to me, you and your friends on TH-cam are great please keep it up and stay safe. May God Bless you for what you and your friends are doing for us.
When you say 5-9%, it’s always better to go for the 5% right? So leaving 9% is like the borderline, I will go ahead and stick to 5% for now... I’m on my first credit card btw... Kind of nervous because I know if I mess this up then it will have a decent impact 😬
Something to keep in mind is some cards will just vanish anything under a dollar or two left on your statement as a 'charge adjustment'. Capital One does this.
@@AskSebby Is there a way to know whether or not a fully prepaid balance gets reported? There are 2 benefits that I could think of if it does: a) Something that was charge adjusted down from a small sum to 0 technically gives you free money b) you do not need to pay the small sum at all which means you'll be making 1 payment rather than 2, saving you some effort.
@Karen Stomas If you pay it off; (where it looks like you don't use it) to the Bureau's they don't see any experience in payment overtime on charges. It DOES NOT have to be a large balance carried, like 3%. Your activity in paying on-time and a low utilization improves your score. Low utilization early on of 0, does not work as well.
Another great video! I have learned so much from your channel! Keep making the awesome videos. And yes I do pre pay my credit cards at least twice a week. I have followed your advice and I use my credit cards like a debit card! This has helped me build a great relationship with Amex and I was approved for 2 businesses cards. Waiting to apply for the BCE card after my 90 days is up!
After 1 month of watching you did so good, did what you said credit improve by 67 point 2 month ago I didnt even know my credit score now I cant wait for next month my utilization is 0 to 9%. That's it.
To add to this, apparently it's the last business date before the end of the month. i.e., Friday = March 29 Sat = March 30 Sun = March 31 They'll use March 29.
A very important thing that I found that helps but make the Sheraton not going to debt and keep utilization lower is to make sure that you still get paper statements. Something about sending a PDF in the secure site of a website makes you not want to read it. If you were forced to open your mail every month and look at your statements you will be more inclined to track your spending and I think that’s very important
I just got my first secured credit card and before watching this video I had absolutely no idea about anything that had to do with credit cards so thank you very much for making this video
I've found from tinkering around with utilization my scores are higher with 0% utilization than with 1%. I have a thick credit file so your results may vary.
I thought US Bank used the last business day of the month. It's close enough to the 1st that you can use that "just to be safe" but from what I've read, the last business day is what they actually use.
SEBBY QUESTION: 1. How often should you use a credit card that you plan to keep for longevity ? 2. Should you use and pay off, or should you let it cycle through a billing period?( so that it hits your credit report( utilizAtion ) ? 3. How long will it be when they close your account with no use ? (Months, 1 year)? What I have been doing is using my “Longevity “ cards in November maybe once so that I show activity. But what are the repercussions having minimum use on these? 4.And when do they typically close accounts for minimal use or no use. ? Thanks !
You should leave a balance to post up to 10%. I went in for a loan, and was told by the loan company that there was "no payment record" on my 6 credit cards. I said "not true", and showed them my bank statements to prove I used my cards, but paid the balance to "0" on each of them before they posted. I was told to let some of the balance post before paying it off to show I was using the cards. Otherwise, it will show "0" usage on the cards. They wanted to see usage, and payments. As long as you pay the "posted" balance by the due date, no interest is charged ( except predatory lenders like Credit One, that don't offer a "Grace period" and charge interest as soon as the charge posts).
Keeping your utilization 0% you risk having your card cancelled for non-use. The Godfather of Credit stresses 5%-29% if you want to achieve or maintain a 720-820 credit score.
I have increased my credit scores 100 points in six weeks the moment I changed my Credit Card usage. I made my CC's my debit cards and pumped all my money through them. I am on a 90 day plan to go from 589-700+. VantageScore 3.0 and FICO at 595-690+. My current TransUnion VS3.0 is 696 and FICO is 656! It works and I started after getting denied a recent limit increase request in May 2020. I have not missed a payment in 4+ years. I was utilizing too much.
J. R. That’s true. I had like 6 of those credit cards, but I paid two of them off and my wife kept them from me as I paid them off. She believed a balance of zero is perfect. Well I got 2 high credit limit cards cancelled because of that. Well I am currently at 728 credit score soo I won’t be mad about it lol
I aim to keep every card I have at an 8.8% usage ratio. BUT I do NOT try to bring it up to that number if I'm coming to the end of the month well under it, of course.
Okay so I have some questions because I’m new to this. If I have a balance of 50, should I pay it off every week? Or should I do one big payment? I have a 100 percent payment history over the past 3 years, but I’m just now actually educating myself on it. My due date is the 17th of every month and my closing date is the 20th of every month I assume What’s the best way to take advantage of the payments? And what would be my statement opening date?
I found that my card score went down because it appeared I paid my credit card down before the statements are generated. For instance if I pay for gas on my credit card within 2 days I transfer funds to my credit card to cover it. It seemed having 0 balances across all my cards reduced my score by like 10 points as they had nothing to report. So when should you pay your credit cards?
I'm trying to figure this out but I'm thinking we should just pay it down to single digits, the make a payment so that it reports with very low utilization.
Need some clarification, So I have a discover it card, I have a limit of $200, so my closing date is the 18th. So if I use $100 dollars and pay off $98 dollars 2 days before the closing date I’ll be left with $2 dollars on my statement making it utilization of 1% usage on my credit card statement correct?
So pay it all the way off on the due date or leave $1 charged to carry over? This picture date terminology threw me way off and made this whole video confusing. There's due date and statement date.
Thank you for sharing the mindset of prepaying the balance on the card. I am in my first month with my first secured card. I like how it shows the current balance. So I really like paying once the balance is updated. At first I was just buying coffee with the card and paying the series of purchases at the end of the week. I had to make a couple of large (hahaha $50 & $60) purchases, so I paid off both as soon as it showed up in the balance. This is a totally new and accountable way to spend money. I like it, thank you. BTW I work in SF, I should check out your consultation services. Because using points and rewards is completely foreign to me. YIKES I kind of heard it first from you. I never really had a credit card before. Strange but true...
Appreciate your candid and intelligent approach. Even though I have a degree, I’m not the most mathematically inclined. Discover is the one card I feel with help me the quickest. I have been learning a lot from your knowledge. Much gratitude!!!
I always thought that setting my auto-pay to "statement balance" would do this exact thing, but it didn't! I need to manually do this every time before the balance ever even shows up. Thanks for this info!
Here in the U.K. the maximum credit score is 1000. I have 3 cards that were nearly maxed out. My score has gone up from 596 to 880 within one month just by paying each of them down to under 70% utilisation.
Cant thank you enough for this. Im brand new to the credit card game and i only have a $500 credit limit. All of a sudden i checked my score and saw it had plummeted over 200 points even though i was paying on time. Now i totally understand why and can fix it super quickly. Thanks!!
Thank you so much for posting this informative and well-delivered message. It was valuable information that I found easy to follow and enjoyable to learn. Great stuff, thanks again!!
This is basically what I do. I hadn’t viewed it as paying weekly but periodically throughout the month I take the balance to zero. Your credit card is basically a go between with protections and benefits.
I recently received my first secured credit card, made a couple of payments through it and prepaid a portion of what I used, today I received an email from experian letting me know that my score had increased by almost 50 points. I'm cool with that, but I really don't understand how is this possible so fast?
Did you max out the card (or close to it) before the statement date and then pay it off? I'm asking because, that's what I've been doing and I have doubts on whether it was damaging my report or not. To max out my card or not max out my card. That is the question.
@@lovelyjackson1409 because Citizens bank is very generous and not only did they increased my limit by 6,500 on one card but they have given me another card for 14,200 just offered me the card and I took it 3 years ago
Let’s see if I understood this correctly. Credit Limit 100$ Statement date: 20th of every month. Balance due: 25th of every month. So if I pay 99$ before the 20th, then wait for the statement date, I should be at 1%, then I just have to pay that 1$ when the balance is due?
Yes. Probably do it on the 15th so it has time to "post" to the account. Bank sees 1% and sends that to the bureaus. Bureaus increase your score due to low risk (utilization is a huge risk factor, hence why it affects your credit score so much).
Ask Sebby Here’s my situation. My Balance’s due date is on the 21st. My statement comes on the 26th. Do I pay all except 1% on the due date and carry the balance over until the statement comes? I don’t want interest though.
So my balance due date is the 8th and my closing date is the 12th. As long as I pay my balance down to a dollar by the 12th every month I should be good?
For example if you have a credit limit of $1,000 and you use the whole $1000, BUT you pay it down to $100 before your STATEMENT date, does it get reported as 10% utilization or do you get penalized for using all of your credit even if you payed it down to $100 before your STATEMENT date?
So my due date is the 17th and my statement date is 20th of every month, you’re saying if i leave $1-3 of my balance for the month on the 20th, and let’s say then pay that 1-3 dollars off on the 21st my credit score will jump up fast?
I called my credit card bank to ask them about my statement date, or end of cycle date. They said, well, the due date is on the 12th, so just add 3 days after that, so it's on the 15th. How can my statement date be further away than my due date?
hello, sebby. i now have 6 credit cards had four but credit sesame said to get two more so i did. well my question is would it just be better not to use them? then your debt would always be 0. love your videos thank you...
I pay off my credit card in full weekly, never paid a cent in interest and have built my credit score very well after only just over a year using credit.
That's what I do... I pay c cards off before the info hits the bureaus. I do use the 0% interest cards often, keeping my $$$ in my Ally savings account, until the promo expires, for the interest.
If I have a balance on my store cc but I’m just making payments on the balance and not making purchases with the card will the cc close bc i’m not making purchases?
So let’s say this. My credit card is a secured credit card with a balance of $400. I spend $300 the (minimum payment) due date is the 01-01-2020 . The Next statement date is 01-07-2020. Which one I have to pay first and when I have to leave the dollar? How do I do it, can anybody explain me this please. I’m having trouble understanding
So basically if you spend let’s say 300/1000 in a period or month between April 4- May 5th that’s due June 1 of the next month: - one should pay 97% or 297 a couple days before the statement comes out (so in this case I should probably pay that 97% on April 30th) -so then by the time that early payment gets processed there will only be 3% utilization on the statement period for that April 4 - May 5th period -which I would then pay within a couple days after the statement gets sent?
Not sure if you need an answer still, but 1% of your credit limit. What you spend each month on almost every card is irrelevant. All that matters is what is reported on your statement date
This is the method I use and I made over $500 in rewards last year. But I ALWAYS paid to zero. Although my credit is up 146 points I still have my a few OLD late payments on my credit. I will absolutely be paying down to $1 to see if that helps. THANK YOU.
Okay so if my closing statement date is on the 16th? I should pay 99% of the balance on the 15th? And for the minimum payment due on the 20th what happens there? Am I supposed to pay off the remaining dollar?
@AMERICAN PATRIOT Thanks for the reply.. But I was told by my card issuer that my closing date is on the 28th and my payment due date is on the 20th.. So trying to understand..
@AMERICAN PATRIOT So do you keep usage rates low before statement close date and then pay off the balance remaining at due date? I'm not sure how it works! From the way I'm understanding this it is that you always keep a balance on the card!
@AMERICAN PATRIOT see that's where I'm confused. So let a small balance report on statement close date, and then pay off the balance right after closing date?
i definitely maintain excellent payment history by prepaying. i'm going to start letting my statements close on a 2%-9% balance though, because i do want higher limits & score; i want to show that i'm taking care of the balances i have, instead of just showing 0% utilization.
Okay I'm going to try this. While I pay my cards of regularly, my score goes up and down between 759 and 769. If I make a $800 to $1k purchase, the score goes down though I have an $8k credit line and I pay off the balance in a week or two, or less. So I don't get why it goes up and down like every two months it seems. I'll try to pay the card balance to zero before the statement date or just pay it every week and see what happens.
My experience has been. I currently subscribe to Experian credit monitoring and everyday I check to see how my credit goes up and down. I had a solid 850 then subscribing I started getting more cards lollll BUTTT ANYWAY. It’s a consistent 823.My utilization has been 1-2% on a consistent average , when I pay all of my debt with a utilization of 0 it’s drops 16-20 points !!!!! I’m like wtf. So what I have learned is to have a balance when the banks report to the bureaus. So I am going between 0-1% utilization and always dropping and increasing month to month . This has only been my experience.
So if I pay everything off before the closing date, when should I use the card again? For example the billing cycle is Jan 1 to 31st. I pay everything off the 30th. When should I use my card again? Or is it better to let 1% be reported to the Bureau and pay it off after it’s reported?
So lets say i have a CC with a 300 limit my due date is the 11th of each month and my statement date is the 14th of each month.....how would i play it???
Hey Sebby I have a question, if you have a $200 credit limit & a balance of $30, and your due date is the 1st of the month and your *''Cycle close Date''* is the 5th of the month,..if you Pay $25 on or before the 1st, {That will leave a $5 balance, which equates to about *2 or 3% utilization}* then Discover Reports a $5 Balance on the 5th *{Because Discover Report to the Credit Bureaus On Your Cycle Close Date)* The 2 or 3% is good for your utilization, but would you charged interest on that $5 carry over balance to the next billing cycle? Is there away to counter this besides the obvious ''Paying the balance if full'' b 4 the ''Statement Close Date'' Thanks.
Hey new to credit cards but I understand these ratio utilization, but like u said if u owe 100$ wouldn’t u pay the 100$? Why would u pay 99$? Wouldn’t it make sense to pay the 100$ or a bit above ? Just confused and trying to understand
Hi! Do you know what happens to credit card points when pre-paying? Are points calculated based on statement balance at the time of statement generation?
Great content, good for everyone's general knowledge regardless of what card you have. That said, I keep a spreadsheet like some others to, and noticed when these field a couple weeks ago, Chase closing dates are consistent but AmEx is not. It varies within a range of a few days. CO is consistent too. I don't hv a Citi card since they lost Hilton but I could check old statements.
I'm new to credit. I don't even have a score yet. I've been having a 0% utilization since I got my BoA card. I know Sebby said to leave $1 when the statement closes. Just wondering what others think. Should I continue to leave 0% or have something on there. Also, would 0% not build any credit or is it just too new and that's why I don't have a score yet?
Dave69me It can take a few months before you generate your first FICO score. When he said to leave $1, I believe he actually meant 1%. Some banks will round anything under $2 to $0.
How's it going , your videos are very informative but have a question. Im building credit and have the unsecured capital one platinum card, my bill day is the 24th but when I called customer service he said they report to the credit bureau relativaly 3 to 4 days after so how can I pay off my card and still have the 10% utilazation?. Do I pay on the 24th and immediately make a purchase after? Thanks for taking the time to read this
@@Twothreeangel nah I never found out,so what I'm doing is pay it off before my due date in full and being I know they send my info to the credit bureau on the 27th every month I make sure it shows about 7-10% utilization
Hi Sebby, I have a platinum capitol one credit card with a 249.00 credit line, I'm trying to reestablish 0 credit so I got this capitol one card, its now at 670 score now, I'm so confused I'v been told to pay on the ending billing date, can I pay before that date? like my ending date is the 2nd or 3rd of the month so can I pay on the first instead of the 2nd or 3rd? someone said to leave at least 9% or 10% balance on the card to up my credit scores and keep them up, but did you mean to just leave 1%? is this better? PLEASE HELP! Thank you for your time...
Sebastian, I have a question about credit card utilization. An attempt to build credit without paying any interest, I have two cards one with a $15,000 with a 19.9 APR, and the other a $1,000 limit with a 0 APR for the first year. (So $16,000 total credit) I need to buy a set of tires that's pulling around the 900 mark. Ultimately I would like to use the card with the zero APR. But when my credit card utilization is reported, is it going to say that I'm using 90% of one card, or is it still going to view it as less than 10% out of total credit? Furthermore should I take them up on their offer of a Merchant's credit card, which also has a 0% interest rate for the first. Making the payments is not my problem, I just don't want to have a negative impact on my score if my utilization is deemed very high. Thanks again Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas
Very good video. I have one question: is credit utilization scored separately for every card or for the total credit limit? I always pay my full bill before due date because I want to avoid interest. However, as I have now managed to get an overall decent credit limit, I am wondering if I really need to pay before statement date. For example, I have five cards, if I total the outstanding amount on all the cards and divide by my total credit limit, my utilization will always be around 1% or 2% on any given day. However, for one particular card that I got recently, it has a low credit limit but good rewards. So, I end up using around 50% of the credit limit. In the future, I hope they will increase my credit limit. However, now should I be worried about hitting high utilization on one particular card even if at every single point of time I am using only a very small percentage of my overall available credit?
Thanks so much. Wiil change my life as when I started my business I had to fund out of my small pockets so credit score hit very poor. I will check back in a year to inform how much it grew.
Hey Sebby. I know you talk about checking data points like if 711 runs as gas and whatnot. My question is. If the first quarter on chase freedom is drugstores, and I made a pharmacy purchase on 01/04 but didn’t activate the quarter until today 01/11, will they retro-date my purchase to get that 5%? Is this something that I have to ask them to do or will they do it automatically?
Hello Sebby and all, I owe about 100K in about 15 credit cards and I'm about to pay them down to 0, but just and idea that if I call each credit card co. and say will like to pay everything in one payment but for less then I owe, you think CC Co. would accept and still leave Card open or automatically they would close the account? Also what consequences could happen. Please Advise and Thank You.
This messed me up lol I paid my whole balance off a few days b4 the due date. A day after the due date I used my card and they reported a balance pushing my utilization up 😩 smh
Ask Sebby yea I know. My comment was referring to using my card before the statement date, which put a balance on my credit report after I already paid in full. I thought I would be good to use it after I already paid in full. But after the statement date, it reported a balance which raised my utilization.
Hey Sebby. I have a couple questions. 1. If I make a charge and pay it as soon as I see it on my account do I get full cash back? 2. If you pay bills with your card and pay the balance by the due date how do you avoid a bill posting to your card between the due date and statement date. Which will show up on your credit file utilization? Thanks in advance.
kaspatova you guys are looking at this the wrong way. The percentage will be different for everyone based on how much total available credit you have. For the purpose he is explaining here, you need to focus on the $1 not the percentage. That $1 is left there to rollover to the next month. This is to ensure that the card issuer reports that you actually made a payment of $X.xx, to the credit bureaus. Some card issues have been known not to report a payment made if the entire balance is paid before the statement date. So you leave a dollar that will rollover to the next statement, now you’re carrying a balance, and they will report that you paid however much
@@patrickwilson4902 No, you pay say $99 out of $100. You've paid your bill well over the minimum balance they require (usually $25). The $1 is to ensure that the company reports that you paid $99 to them. If you paid the full $100 and were at a zero balance, some companies won't report it (though I've only heard of Capitol One doing this). This is especially important for people with a younger credit history since they don't have many payments reported. So if they missed one in the past out of 50, then that's only 98% on time payments. If you have 100, it's now 99% (99/100). At 1000 payments, it jumps another almost 1% from 99% to 99.9% (999/1000). So that is why especially people who use CapOne cards use this method. Another thing, if you're going for a big loan soon (eg mortgage, refi, auto) then use the AZEO method - All cards Zero Except One. This is where you would zero out all cards except one and leave anywhere from 1-8% balance on it. This apparently really looks good to lenders.
Hi Sebby. Just one question.....if i pay off any balance b4 statement date for a 0% U.R, will the bureau interpret that as an 'active' account, since payment was made B4 statement date?
My credit score has gone up 150 pts this year as I practice what this man preaches.
I have a spreadsheet with balances and credit reporting dates on all 16 of my cards. Thanks for great videos!
That's great! Do you mind sharing your spreadsheet so I can have an idea about the setup? Sounds very useful. Maybe posting a download link for the file.
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Wow! Congrats
Sixteen cards in a recipe for trouble. There is no good reason to have that many cards.
@@rockslide4802 what’s the ideal amount?
Great video! I actually pay my cards weekly too. I have an obsession to get my statement to cut as close to zero as possible. Also helps me treat my cards like a debit card and not spend what I don't have.
I am just starting out. I really like the message of not spending what you don't have.
Smart! I pay mine every 2 to 3 days immediately as the merchandise posts to my account for payment. I’m obsessed with treating my card like a debit card.
The way I keep track of all my statements, I use the calendar on my android phone (also can be done on iPhone). I set an alert two days in advance that the current month statement is about to close and pay it off completely. Every month the alert repeats and I also check all of my accounts weekly.
Great info I pay my cards every Friday and it has helped me increase my scores to over 760 this method keeps me on top of all my spending and make me has a utilization of 3%.
Everyone that is playing this credit card points game the right way has a certain level of self control and self governance above most people. The game and hobby do reward you for having this trait in your personality.
I told my father the other day that its like having the ability to buy anything you want but not really because you dont have the money or have to be responsible towards other things. Some of us have lots of purchasing power but its ultimately just a numbers game. Your balances, credit scores, which card to use and when, etc.
+SolidLiquidFox This is soo true !! this credit card game changed me ( it's depressing sometimes but rewarding ).
A strong mindset is no fun. ( fighting to maintain a hight score, credit inquiries, points for best credit cards and expenses, paying on time to avoid interests lol..) and beyond all that, i'm a vegan. Now i know why *Thinking* is the Toughest job in life.
You are absolutely right, Solidliquidfox, but for me its motivation for me to be the best that I can be and to climb the ladder to a better score and better increases and I love the attention and respect that comes with good credit to me it's like being a champion and refusing to give that position up that is my motivation
I've been pre-paying my credit cards for years now just because it's an easier way to keep track of my spending. I didn't know there was even a name for it though I just found it was an easier way to avoid over spending and paying interest.
I also have a spreadsheet that I use to track all my investments on every Sunday so it also just made sense to pay all my bills every Sunday too.
Hi Sebby again I want to thank you for everything that you are teaching me. I'm 64 years old retired U.S. Navy and this is all new to me, you and your friends on TH-cam are great please keep it up and stay safe. May God Bless you for what you and your friends are doing for us.
This method has helped me tremendously.
I make it a point to have my utilization ~ 5-9% a day or two before closing statement.
When you say 5-9%, it’s always better to go for the 5% right? So leaving 9% is like the borderline, I will go ahead and stick to 5% for now... I’m on my first credit card btw... Kind of nervous because I know if I mess this up then it will have a decent impact 😬
why have to keep between 5-9% ?? why don't just pay off to 0%
earth Jaratmanachot if you keep it 0% the credit bureaus will see that your not using the card at all. It’s best to keep it a certain percent.
Something to keep in mind is some cards will just vanish anything under a dollar or two left on your statement as a 'charge adjustment'. Capital One does this.
Good point. 1% in that case might be better.
@@AskSebby Is there a way to know whether or not a fully prepaid balance gets reported? There are 2 benefits that I could think of if it does: a) Something that was charge adjusted down from a small sum to 0 technically gives you free money b) you do not need to pay the small sum at all which means you'll be making 1 payment rather than 2, saving you some effort.
This explains why we paid off our card every month before the statement date with Cap1 and never really saw any increase in score.
@Karen Stomas If you pay it off; (where it looks like you don't use it) to the Bureau's they don't see any experience in payment overtime on charges. It DOES NOT have to be a large balance carried, like 3%. Your activity in paying on-time and a low utilization improves your score. Low utilization early on of 0, does not work as well.
Another great video! I have learned so much from your channel! Keep making the awesome videos. And yes I do pre pay my credit cards at least twice a week. I have followed your advice and I use my credit cards like a debit card! This has helped me build a great relationship with Amex and I was approved for 2 businesses cards. Waiting to apply for the BCE card after my 90 days is up!
After 1 month of watching you did so good, did what you said credit improve by 67 point 2 month ago I didnt even know my credit score now I cant wait for next month my utilization is 0 to 9%. That's it.
I was needing this and was confused because US Bank reported before due date. I really appreciate the info that you provide.
To add to this, apparently it's the last business date before the end of the month. i.e.,
Friday = March 29
Sat = March 30
Sun = March 31
They'll use March 29.
A very important thing that I found that helps but make the Sheraton not going to debt and keep utilization lower is to make sure that you still get paper statements. Something about sending a PDF in the secure site of a website makes you not want to read it. If you were forced to open your mail every month and look at your statements you will be more inclined to track your spending and I think that’s very important
Appreciate the 1% or $1 tip to insure on-time payments are recorded at the bureaus
I just got my first secured credit card and before watching this video I had absolutely no idea about anything that had to do with credit cards so thank you very much for making this video
I agree cash is hard to track... but seeing red on my tracker makes me go nuts towards paying it off...I also take advantage of the grace period.
Went from 503 to 700 paying my balances off.
Congrats :)
I’m at 559 I’m trying to get there man
How long did it take?
6 weeks.
@@wilford71ify
Naaaaahhhhhh
I just started watching your videos about credit and so far I like yours better than others I’ve seen.
I've found from tinkering around with utilization my scores are higher with 0% utilization than with 1%. I have a thick credit file so your results may vary.
I thought US Bank used the last business day of the month. It's close enough to the 1st that you can use that "just to be safe" but from what I've read, the last business day is what they actually use.
yeah, last i checked, that's what they do. I had a $200 balance hit my statement, but they reported $8
Good clarification.
SEBBY QUESTION:
1. How often should you use a credit card that you plan to keep for longevity ?
2. Should you use and pay off, or should you let it cycle through a billing period?( so that it hits your credit report( utilizAtion ) ?
3. How long will it be when they close your account with no use ? (Months, 1 year)?
What I have been doing is using my “Longevity “ cards in November maybe once so that I show activity. But what are the repercussions having minimum use on these?
4.And when do they typically close accounts for minimal use or no use. ?
Thanks !
Covered here: www.asksebby.com/blog/how-often-should-you-use-your-credit-cards-to-keep-them-active
i Paid off a huge Amex bill and my score dropped 4 points. what kind of a scam system are we dealing with here!
Yes, I have used this method and yes I hate seeing a balance :)
I've kept utilization at 0 in the past and realized that keeping utilization at 1% increases the score much faster.
What does this mean? I'm a bit lost.
You should leave a balance to post up to 10%. I went in for a loan, and was told by the loan company that there was "no payment record" on my 6 credit cards. I said "not true", and showed them my bank statements to prove I used my cards, but paid the balance to "0" on each of them before they posted. I was told to let some of the balance post before paying it off to show I was using the cards. Otherwise, it will show "0" usage on the cards. They wanted to see usage, and payments. As long as you pay the "posted" balance by the due date, no interest is charged ( except predatory lenders like Credit One, that don't offer a "Grace period" and charge interest as soon as the charge posts).
Keeping your utilization 0% you risk having your card cancelled for non-use. The Godfather of Credit stresses 5%-29% if you want to achieve or maintain a 720-820 credit score.
I have increased my credit scores 100 points in six weeks the moment I changed my Credit Card usage. I made my CC's my debit cards and pumped all my money through them. I am on a 90 day plan to go from 589-700+. VantageScore 3.0 and FICO at 595-690+. My current TransUnion VS3.0 is 696 and FICO is 656! It works and I started after getting denied a recent limit increase request in May 2020. I have not missed a payment in 4+ years. I was utilizing too much.
J. R. That’s true. I had like 6 of those credit cards, but I paid two of them off and my wife kept them from me as I paid them off. She believed a balance of zero is perfect. Well I got 2 high credit limit cards cancelled because of that. Well I am currently at 728 credit score soo I won’t be mad about it lol
I got a 500 secured card limit And my statement is on the 18th so when should i pay my balance off or how much off my balance should i pay?
I aim to keep every card I have at an 8.8% usage ratio. BUT I do NOT try to bring it up to that number if I'm coming to the end of the month well under it, of course.
Okay so I have some questions because I’m new to this. If I have a balance of 50, should I pay it off every week? Or should I do one big payment? I have a 100 percent payment history over the past 3 years, but I’m just now actually educating myself on it.
My due date is the 17th of every month and my closing date is the 20th of every month I assume
What’s the best way to take advantage of the payments?
And what would be my statement opening date?
When you say " I recommend not keeping a balance going forward" does that also apply to keeping $1 on the balance ?
my score isn’t that high.... 620. should i be leaving $1 on my cards. i pay all my cards down to $0 bfr the closing day.
I found that my card score went down because it appeared I paid my credit card down before the statements are generated. For instance if I pay for gas on my credit card within 2 days I transfer funds to my credit card to cover it. It seemed having 0 balances across all my cards reduced my score by like 10 points as they had nothing to report. So when should you pay your credit cards?
I'm trying to figure this out but I'm thinking we should just pay it down to single digits, the make a payment so that it reports with very low utilization.
Need some clarification, So I have a discover it card, I have a limit of $200, so my closing date is the 18th. So if I use $100 dollars and pay off $98 dollars 2 days before the closing date I’ll be left with $2 dollars on my statement making it utilization of 1% usage on my credit card statement correct?
yes thats right
MuFaSa Tv better to just pay it off completely so you don’t carry anything over
So pay it all the way off on the due date or leave $1 charged to carry over? This picture date terminology threw me way off and made this whole video confusing. There's due date and statement date.
I usually have my utilization ratio around 4%-7% before the statement closing date and will typically pay it off in full a few days after.
If you worry about spending more then you normally do with a credit card... I found using a budgeting app like mint helps a ton.
Does it matter if you pay off your balance a few days before statement date or weeks before?
Not really except for certain issuers.
Thank you for sharing the mindset of prepaying the balance on the card. I am in my first month with my first secured card. I like how it shows the current balance. So I really like paying once the balance is updated. At first I was just buying coffee with the card and paying the series of purchases at the end of the week. I had to make a couple of large (hahaha $50 & $60) purchases, so I paid off both as soon as it showed up in the balance. This is a totally new and accountable way to spend money. I like it, thank you. BTW I work in SF, I should check out your consultation services. Because using points and rewards is completely foreign to me. YIKES I kind of heard it first from you. I never really had a credit card before. Strange but true...
Appreciate your candid and intelligent approach. Even though I have a degree, I’m not the most mathematically inclined. Discover is the one card I feel with help me the quickest. I have been learning a lot from your knowledge. Much gratitude!!!
Glad to help :)
I always thought that setting my auto-pay to "statement balance" would do this exact thing, but it didn't! I need to manually do this every time before the balance ever even shows up. Thanks for this info!
Here in the U.K. the maximum credit score is 1000. I have 3 cards that were nearly maxed out. My score has gone up from 596 to 880 within one month just by paying each of them down to under 70% utilisation.
Cant thank you enough for this. Im brand new to the credit card game and i only have a $500 credit limit. All of a sudden i checked my score and saw it had plummeted over 200 points even though i was paying on time. Now i totally understand why and can fix it super quickly. Thanks!!
Why did it plummet? I also have 500 dollar credit card limit
Thank you so much for posting this informative and well-delivered message. It was valuable information that I found easy to follow and enjoyable to learn. Great stuff, thanks again!!
This is basically what I do. I hadn’t viewed it as paying weekly but periodically throughout the month I take the balance to zero. Your credit card is basically a go between with protections and benefits.
Go between 👌
I recently received my first secured credit card, made a couple of payments through it and prepaid a portion of what I used, today I received an email from experian letting me know that my score had increased by almost 50 points. I'm cool with that, but I really don't understand how is this possible so fast?
You are on point, I just got a 6,500 hundred dollar increase on my card in 4 months after keeping my balance at 00
How?
@@lovelyjackson1409 Paying off the balance before the statement closing date
Did you max out the card (or close to it) before the statement date and then pay it off? I'm asking because, that's what I've been doing and I have doubts on whether it was damaging my report or not.
To max out my card or not max out my card. That is the question.
@@lovelyjackson1409 because Citizens bank is very generous and not only did they increased my limit by 6,500 on one card but they have given me another card for 14,200 just offered me the card and I took it 3 years ago
Do do this if you are trying to get new cards. I have done it and when trying to apply for a CITI card, they rejected my application because of it.
Let’s see if I understood this correctly.
Credit Limit 100$
Statement date: 20th of every month.
Balance due: 25th of every month.
So if I pay 99$ before the 20th, then wait for the statement date, I should be at 1%, then I just have to pay that 1$ when the balance is due?
Yes. Probably do it on the 15th so it has time to "post" to the account.
Bank sees 1% and sends that to the bureaus.
Bureaus increase your score due to low risk (utilization is a huge risk factor, hence why it affects your credit score so much).
Ask Sebby Here’s my situation.
My Balance’s due date is on the 21st. My statement comes on the 26th. Do I pay all except 1% on the due date and carry the balance over until the statement comes? I don’t want interest though.
So my balance due date is the 8th and my closing date is the 12th. As long as I pay my balance down to a dollar by the 12th every month I should be good?
For example if you have a credit limit of $1,000 and you use the whole $1000, BUT you pay it down to $100 before your STATEMENT date, does it get reported as 10% utilization or do you get penalized for using all of your credit even if you payed it down to $100 before your STATEMENT date?
So my due date is the 17th and my statement date is 20th of every month, you’re saying if i leave $1-3 of my balance for the month on the 20th, and let’s say then pay that 1-3 dollars off on the 21st my credit score will jump up fast?
Can u prepay more than your balance? Like to make a large purchase that’s over your credit limit.
Thanks Sebby for all your good advice. You have helped me so much!!
I have a Amex charge card
I'm hardly using it. Please advise if closing this charge card gonna hit my credit score in a negative way?
I called my credit card bank to ask them about my statement date, or end of cycle date. They said, well, the due date is on the 12th, so just add 3 days after that, so it's on the 15th. How can my statement date be further away than my due date?
hello, sebby. i now have 6 credit cards had four but credit sesame said to get two more so i did. well my question is would it just be better not to use them? then your debt would always be 0. love your videos thank you...
I pay off my credit card in full weekly, never paid a cent in interest and have built my credit score very well after only just over a year using credit.
That's what I do... I pay c cards off before the info hits the bureaus. I do use the 0% interest cards often, keeping my $$$ in my Ally savings account, until the promo expires, for the interest.
If I have a balance on my store cc but I’m just making payments on the balance and not making purchases with the card will the cc close bc i’m not making purchases?
So let’s say this. My credit card is a secured credit card with a balance of $400. I spend $300 the (minimum payment) due date is the 01-01-2020 . The Next statement date is 01-07-2020. Which one I have to pay first and when I have to leave the dollar? How do I do it, can anybody explain me this please. I’m having trouble understanding
So basically if you spend let’s say 300/1000 in a period or month between April 4- May 5th that’s due June 1 of the next month:
- one should pay 97% or 297 a couple days before the statement comes out (so in this case I should probably pay that 97% on April 30th)
-so then by the time that early payment gets processed there will only be 3% utilization on the statement period for that April 4 - May 5th period -which I would then pay within a couple days after the statement gets sent?
Is it 1% of the total credit limit or 1% of the total amount you've spent this month/ statement? Thanks for answering! Love Sebby!
Not sure if you need an answer still, but 1% of your credit limit. What you spend each month on almost every card is irrelevant. All that matters is what is reported on your statement date
My credit score has increase by 133 points after watching your videos! Thank you.
This is the method I use and I made over $500 in rewards last year. But I ALWAYS paid to zero. Although my credit is up 146 points I still have my a few OLD late payments on my credit. I will absolutely be paying down to $1 to see if that helps. THANK YOU.
Lots of great info here. You clarify things you usually skip over. Well Done.
Okay so if my closing statement date is on the 16th? I should pay 99% of the balance on the 15th? And for the minimum payment due on the 20th what happens there? Am I supposed to pay off the remaining dollar?
Yes they will take the picture on the 16th so pay it before then. Whatever yoy havr left pay it before the statement due date
Hi seb,sow my payment is due on the 5 of every month, when should I pay my credit card bill... I have capital one card,,, thank you very much
Question?? What if ur Statement Date Is After Your Due Date?? How Would u handle that?
@AMERICAN PATRIOT Thanks for the reply.. But I was told by my card issuer that my closing date is on the 28th and my payment due date is on the 20th.. So trying to understand..
@AMERICAN PATRIOT So do you keep usage rates low before statement close date and then pay off the balance remaining at due date? I'm not sure how it works!
From the way I'm understanding this it is that you always keep a balance on the card!
@AMERICAN PATRIOT see that's where I'm confused. So let a small balance report on statement close date, and then pay off the balance right after closing date?
@AMERICAN PATRIOT how exactly does that raise your credit score?
i definitely maintain excellent payment history by prepaying. i'm going to start letting my statements close on a 2%-9% balance though, because i do want higher limits & score; i want to show that i'm taking care of the balances i have, instead of just showing 0% utilization.
That seems reasonable :)
Okay I'm going to try this. While I pay my cards of regularly, my score goes up and down between 759 and 769. If I make a $800 to $1k purchase, the score goes down though I have an $8k credit line and I pay off the balance in a week or two, or less. So I don't get why it goes up and down like every two months it seems. I'll try to pay the card balance to zero before the statement date or just pay it every week and see what happens.
My experience has been. I currently subscribe to Experian credit monitoring and everyday I check to see how my credit goes up and down. I had a solid 850 then subscribing I started getting more cards lollll BUTTT ANYWAY. It’s a consistent 823.My utilization has been 1-2% on a consistent average , when I pay all of my debt with a utilization of 0 it’s drops 16-20 points !!!!! I’m like wtf. So what I have learned is to have a balance when the banks report to the bureaus. So I am going between 0-1% utilization and always dropping and increasing month to month . This has only been my experience.
So if I pay everything off before the closing date, when should I use the card again? For example the billing cycle is Jan 1 to 31st. I pay everything off the 30th. When should I use my card again? Or is it better to let 1% be reported to the Bureau and pay it off after it’s reported?
if i prepay the card, will the cash back still apply?
So lets say i have a CC with a 300 limit my due date is the 11th of each month and my statement date is the 14th of each month.....how would i play it???
So if you have a utilization of 0% the day the payment is due it won’t count as an on time payment?
Hey Sebby I have a question, if you have a $200 credit limit & a balance of $30, and your due date is the 1st of the month and your *''Cycle close Date''* is the 5th of the month,..if you Pay $25 on or before the 1st, {That will leave a $5 balance, which equates to about *2 or 3% utilization}* then Discover Reports a $5 Balance on the 5th *{Because Discover Report to the Credit Bureaus On Your Cycle Close Date)* The 2 or 3% is good for your utilization, but would you charged interest on that $5 carry over balance to the next billing cycle? Is there away to counter this besides the obvious ''Paying the balance if full'' b 4 the ''Statement Close Date'' Thanks.
Is this the same thing as paying off your card before the due date?
Hey new to credit cards but I understand these ratio utilization, but like u said if u owe 100$ wouldn’t u pay the 100$? Why would u pay 99$? Wouldn’t it make sense to pay the 100$ or a bit above ? Just confused and trying to understand
Wait, so I want 0% before statement closing date? Wouldn’t that look like inactivity?
I started going to 8% utilization and my credit score instantly went from 566 to 709 in just 2 months!
Hi! Do you know what happens to credit card points when pre-paying? Are points calculated based on statement balance at the time of statement generation?
Thank you! That was helpful
Great content, good for everyone's general knowledge regardless of what card you have. That said, I keep a spreadsheet like some others to, and noticed when these field a couple weeks ago, Chase closing dates are consistent but AmEx is not. It varies within a range of a few days. CO is consistent too. I don't hv a Citi card since they lost Hilton but I could check old statements.
Is keeping an average of 4-7% utilization on your cards on the statement close date bad or is it similar in effects to using 1% UT?
So basically spend a certain percentage each month but dont hold a balance for too long?
I'm new to credit. I don't even have a score yet. I've been having a 0% utilization since I got my BoA card. I know Sebby said to leave $1 when the statement closes. Just wondering what others think. Should I continue to leave 0% or have something on there. Also, would 0% not build any credit or is it just too new and that's why I don't have a score yet?
Dave69me
It can take a few months before you generate your first FICO score. When he said to leave $1, I believe he actually meant 1%. Some banks will round anything under $2 to $0.
Stan Lee ahhhh okay noted. Thank you very much for your reply!
Why 1%? Can I prepay to make it 9% before statement day? How about asking my credit card company to lift my credit limit to make the usage low?
if i recently applied for a discover it secured card, is it a bad idea to also apply for a discover it cash back card?
What happens with charge cards since they don't report utilization, does paying the balance after the statement closes affect your credit?
Discover secured credit card doesn’t let me pay before the due date. How can I pay it off before the due date?
Push payment from your bank's end?
Ask Sebby Awesome!!! Thank you!🙌🏼
@@AskSebby Hey I'm confused what does this mean? "Push payment from the banks end" ??
How's it going , your videos are very informative but have a question. Im building credit and have the unsecured capital one platinum card, my bill day is the 24th but when I called customer service he said they report to the credit bureau relativaly 3 to 4 days after so how can I pay off my card and still have the 10% utilazation?. Do I pay on the 24th and immediately make a purchase after? Thanks for taking the time to read this
I have the same question.. did you find an answer elsewhere?
@@Twothreeangel nah I never found out,so what I'm doing is pay it off before my due date in full and being I know they send my info to the credit bureau on the 27th every month I make sure it shows about 7-10% utilization
I have three credit card that I've been paying down to 0% utilization for a year what happens if I stop paying to 0%?
Hi Sebby, I have a platinum capitol one credit card with a 249.00 credit line, I'm trying to reestablish 0 credit so I got this capitol one card, its now at 670 score now, I'm so confused I'v been told to pay on the ending billing date, can I pay before that date? like my ending date is the 2nd or 3rd of the month so can I pay on the first instead of the 2nd or 3rd? someone said to leave at least 9% or 10% balance on the card to up my credit scores and keep them up, but did you mean to just leave 1%? is this better? PLEASE HELP! Thank you for your time...
Sebastian, I have a question about credit card utilization. An attempt to build credit without paying any interest, I have two cards one with a $15,000 with a 19.9 APR, and the other a $1,000 limit with a 0 APR for the first year. (So $16,000 total credit) I need to buy a set of tires that's pulling around the 900 mark. Ultimately I would like to use the card with the zero APR. But when my credit card utilization is reported, is it going to say that I'm using 90% of one card, or is it still going to view it as less than 10% out of total credit? Furthermore should I take them up on their offer of a Merchant's credit card, which also has a 0% interest rate for the first. Making the payments is not my problem, I just don't want to have a negative impact on my score if my utilization is deemed very high. Thanks again
Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas
Been seeing the Lugavulin in the back and also the sherry cask Yamasaki. Good taste! Hopefully you didn’t have to pay resell value on the Yamasaki.
Hey Sebby I have a question? Where does the Capital One Quicksilver One Card sit on the credit card tier system
Very good video. I have one question: is credit utilization scored separately for every card or for the total credit limit? I always pay my full bill before due date because I want to avoid interest. However, as I have now managed to get an overall decent credit limit, I am wondering if I really need to pay before statement date. For example, I have five cards, if I total the outstanding amount on all the cards and divide by my total credit limit, my utilization will always be around 1% or 2% on any given day. However, for one particular card that I got recently, it has a low credit limit but good rewards. So, I end up using around 50% of the credit limit. In the future, I hope they will increase my credit limit. However, now should I be worried about hitting high utilization on one particular card even if at every single point of time I am using only a very small percentage of my overall available credit?
Thanks so much. Wiil change my life as when I started my business I had to fund out of my small pockets so credit score hit very poor. I will check back in a year to inform how much it grew.
Hey Sebby. I know you talk about checking data points like if 711 runs as gas and whatnot. My question is. If the first quarter on chase freedom is drugstores, and I made a pharmacy purchase on 01/04 but didn’t activate the quarter until today 01/11, will they retro-date my purchase to get that 5%? Is this something that I have to ask them to do or will they do it automatically?
Hello Sebby and all, I owe about 100K in about 15 credit cards and I'm about to pay them down to 0, but just and idea that if I call each credit card co. and say will like to pay everything in one payment but for less then I owe, you think CC Co. would accept and still leave Card open or automatically they would close the account? Also what consequences could happen. Please Advise and Thank You.
This messed me up lol I paid my whole balance off a few days b4 the due date. A day after the due date I used my card and they reported a balance pushing my utilization up 😩 smh
We're talking about the statement close date here, not the due date.
Ask Sebby yea I know. My comment was referring to using my card before the statement date, which put a balance on my credit report after I already paid in full. I thought I would be good to use it after I already paid in full. But after the statement date, it reported a balance which raised my utilization.
Hey Sebby. I have a couple questions. 1. If I make a charge and pay it as soon as I see it on my account do I get full cash back? 2. If you pay bills with your card and pay the balance by the due date how do you avoid a bill posting to your card between the due date and statement date. Which will show up on your credit file utilization? Thanks in advance.
1) Depends on card and terms. Most are by statement.
2) It goes to the next statement.
@4:39 Dude I’m confused so do you pay the balance off fully or leave the said 1$ or 1%?
Anthony Blue just have 1% on the statement date so pay your balance before statement date but leave 1 % of it then pay that off the next day
kaspatova you guys are looking at this the wrong way. The percentage will be different for everyone based on how much total available credit you have. For the purpose he is explaining here, you need to focus on the $1 not the percentage. That $1 is left there to rollover to the next month. This is to ensure that the card issuer reports that you actually made a payment of $X.xx, to the credit bureaus. Some card issues have been known not to report a payment made if the entire balance is paid before the statement date. So you leave a dollar that will rollover to the next statement, now you’re carrying a balance, and they will report that you paid however much
So then I'll be paying a late fee, Of $1.00????
@@patrickwilson4902 No, you pay say $99 out of $100. You've paid your bill well over the minimum balance they require (usually $25). The $1 is to ensure that the company reports that you paid $99 to them. If you paid the full $100 and were at a zero balance, some companies won't report it (though I've only heard of Capitol One doing this). This is especially important for people with a younger credit history since they don't have many payments reported. So if they missed one in the past out of 50, then that's only 98% on time payments. If you have 100, it's now 99% (99/100). At 1000 payments, it jumps another almost 1% from 99% to 99.9% (999/1000). So that is why especially people who use CapOne cards use this method.
Another thing, if you're going for a big loan soon (eg mortgage, refi, auto) then use the AZEO method - All cards Zero Except One. This is where you would zero out all cards except one and leave anywhere from 1-8% balance on it. This apparently really looks good to lenders.
Hi Sebby. Just one question.....if i pay off any balance b4 statement date for a 0% U.R, will the bureau interpret that as an 'active' account, since payment was made B4 statement date?