ADRIANNE, when you get your statement look and see if there is a grace period for paying your balance in full. some banks give customers approx. 25 days to pay in full. Others however don't so you will be charged interest no matter what. So look on your statement to see if you have a grace period.
The typical time is now 25 days, down from 30 about 2 years ago. Some issuers are even reducing the 'grace' period to 22 or as few as 20 days. In those cases you almost have to write a check to them the day it arrives in the mail, as it's 20 days from the date your account closes. It typically takes them a day or two to produce the bill and mail it and then a couple of days to arrive in the mail. You can stretch out the time to pay for something if you are aware of when your closing date is. For example, if you accoutn cycles today, 15 March, and you purchased something with it tomorrow, it would not appear on your bill until it cycles again on 15 April. Assuming you have a 25 day grace period then the payment would be due on 10 May. Be careful though as some cards do not offer grace periods on purchases and the interest accrues throughout the time there is any balance on the card. In addition, if you carry a balance from month to month, the purchase will be added to your 'average daily balance' and you will pay finance charges on new purchases also. There are very few card (if any) left that will segregate new charges and give you a free ride on them for that month if pay at least the amount you charged, plus the minimum payment for carried forward balance.
