I'm in my mid 20s and new to this whole credit game. I have two credit cards, one with a $6500 limit (~4 yrs old) and another with a $3500 limit (~1 yr old). The latter of which I have never used. The "free credit score" website tells me my score is 740. I am entering professional school and tuition is over $20,000 a year which I am paying off through a personal loan with a family member at 1% less than prime not to exceed 5%. I would like to pay the tuition using cards and pay them off immediately, rather than writing a check because I think it might improve my credit. However, in order to pay with my cards I will have to do a cash advance at 3% because the school does not accept VISA. My questions: 1) Is it beneficial to your credit score to pay off all debt every month or just part of the debt, accumulating some interest? 2) If I charge the $20,000 to the card (in installments of course) and pay them off the next day, how beneficial is that to my credit if at all? 3) Is it worth it to take a roughly $700 hit to put $20,000 on a card and pay it off immediately? Thanks, and sorry for the lengthy post but I am clueless. -Adam
I don't think it is worth it to take cash advance on the credit card. If they don't take Visa, do they take Mastercard? Might apply for one of them.
Thanks for the advice, that was kinda what I was thinking. By the way, what about my first question? 1) Is it beneficial to your credit score to pay off all debt every month or just part of the debt, accumulating some interest?
If you can pay with out cards your better off.your card you never use you should every once in a while.so it show's it's being used.credit wise you don't need much to do.use them smartly
Some creditors don't report the credit limit instead they report the high balance to affect the credit score. To fix this problem I always say to charge all the way up to but not over, give $50 dollar leeway so you don't get any fees to push it over. Then that month pay it back off. That will push the high balance up to within $50 of the credit limit. And that will help the credit score. Because then the high balance is equal to credit limit and the utilization on the balance will then be lower. You don't need to do this over and over just every time you get a credit limit increase so that the high balance matches. Capital One is one that is good at not reoprting credit limits. I don't know what all companies do this.
