Calling all credit experts. HELP!

[yankebabie]

We will soon be selling our house and moving to a new state. We plan on buying a new house when we get there. Question is, I currently use my SW Visa and Disney Visa to make all my purchases so I can reap the rewards of mega points. I pay the balance off at the end of every month. Does this reflect badly on my credit report because when I recently got a copy of my credit report it showed that my balance on my Disney Visa was $2000 but did not reflect the fact that I pay it in full every month. Other question is should I stop charging everything on my credit cards a month or two before I apply for a mortgage on new house so it does not show that I have a balance and reflect negatively on my credit report or score? Thanks for any help

 

[jcieutat]

We do the same thing with our Chase Freedom card. We put just about everything on it and pay the balance off every month. We recently did a refinance and it showed the balance but was not an issue for us. We had more cash in our checking account because of the credit card bill. It balances itself out. You could always ask the person that is going to be doing the financing what their bank prefers.

 

[SandrA9810]

You want to show that you are using your credit. As long as you're not using it to the max each month, it shouldn't hurt you. You want to make sure the payment history boxes are all green and in good standings.

You want to show you're utilizing about 10-20% of your credit limit. So if you have $10,000 credit limit or higher between the two, then you're doing good. If you only have a $5,000 limit, then you might want to cut back on your purchases a bit, or pay off half before the statement is generated, to show a lower balance.

If you go to the creditboards.com they can give you lots of good help. There's usually a code on there as well for you to save a few dollars on pulling your credit score from myFICO. Your score is a better judgement than just looking at the reports.

 

[Bell30012]

Change the day you pay off the card to the day before the end of your billing period. Then the credit card will report the low balance owed.

 

[bettymae1121]

DH and I use our Starwood Amex the same way you use your cards and our credit is fine. I wouldn't worry about it.