Building credit score ?

Question

Ok this summer was kind of rough because I was living off my GI bill and because of the pandemic I accidentally chose all online courses instead of making sure one of them was in class so I could receive my full stipend.

No I applied for 3 credit cards because I lost a significant amount of income (like Half) and I used to just to pay for like food really because I worked out a deal with my landlord. But now I’m good my stipend is whwre it should be all of my bills are paid and everything

Now I have three cards. One is $300 Limit and I have $14 available on it. One has $250 limit and I have $250. And one I haven’t activated yet. But it has a $300 limit but my balance is $75 somehow.

I remember someone telling me it’s not good to just pay the balances down to 0 it’s better to just pay in increments to show payment history. My question is this. Is that true or is it just some bologna. And if it’s true. How much should I be paying down and how often?

A Hunch · Accepted Answer

You are a VETERAN of the United States Military.
Do some odd jobs this weekend (advertise on nextdoor or another community site) and pay off your full balances in a weekend of work.

You need to tear up 2 of your credit cards and NEVER used them again.
Whoever told you that it's better not to have a $0 balance with a credit card must either be an executive with the bank or a shareholder with the bank.

DO NOT PAY ATTENTION TO Anonymous... He does not understand credit.A 4pt swing has NOTHING to do with him carrying a balance.  It's because of a tweak the credit reporting agency made to the formula.
NEVER take a loan to build credit.

Anonymous · Answer

Sounds like you did not read the fine print and paid a $75 annual fee on one card. SMH.

You should never carry a balance beyond the due date. And you should never get a card with an annual fee.

None of those piddly small cards are going to build material credit unless you mean over 4-5 years.

In fact, never carrying a balance at all might actually help your score a few points.

(I carried a $1275 balance until yesterday which was the due date. Because I carried that for nearly 2 months,(zero interest) my score lost 4 points) But, Now that its paid off I will get those 4 points back. If I would have never shown a balance and paid before my cycle date, I would not have lost the 4 points.

But, the 4 points is not a long term thing. Just until you paid it off and wait for the next cycle.  I care more about earning a little interest on my money than a lousy 4 points that will come back to me shortly. I mean 826 or 822 makes no difference to me.

If you want to build serious credit, get a $10,000 credit builder loan over 2 years. Psst, no cash up front. That will mean more than a dozen tiny credit cards.

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Building credit score ?

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