I’m just afraid that they look into the history also instead of just taking the current “snapshot” when they calculate FICO scores. What I mean is, if I max out my credit limit (which I would do if I take out money from the 0% balance transfer credit cards and not pay it for a year), then pay it off and look at my FICO score a month later, it will still reflect my old “bad” credit habit.

I honestly haven’t gotten those free copies this year, so I should do that. I’ve been putting it off but thank you for the suggestion! I definitely needed that push!

Have you googled FICO to see what others are estimating as the effects of certain types of behaviors? My direct experience is limited, I’m relying somewhat on what I recall reading elsewhere about it, and I’m past the point of needing to borrow money, having paid off my mortgage and having paid cash for my last two vehicles (my last car payment was 16 years ago). But I do value my good FICO score none the less. My FICO score can effect the cost of car insurance. And if I lost my job and had to find other employment, a prospective employer might pull my credit score. And if the job were in a different city, I might need it to rent an apartment for awhile.

If you’re concerned about your FICO score, have you obtained your annual free copies of your credit reports from the 3 major agencies? If not, get them and have any errors corrected. In my case, one of the agencies had my record mixed up with that of another person. Fortunately, he had reasonably good credit habits. And all 3 of them had negative information that I was able to have removed. Once any errors are corrected, buy your FICO score to see what it looks like.

I wonder if this will make a difference. I wonder if anyone would ever know the real answer to my question.

In general, practicing good financial habits will improve your FICO score. Such as paying your bills on time, and not using credit unwisely. Best not to charge up anything on your card that you can’t pay off when the bill comes due.

As far as your zero-percent card, I still would not charge anything on the card unless I had that much money set aside to pay for it. And a good way to do that would be to put the money in ING Direct or similar online bank that pays a decent interest rate. Then when the 0% ends and the card would start paying interest, pull the money from the savings account and pay the balance in full.

I wonder if it is the same (FICO score wise) if I max out one credit card and have 2 other credit cards that have no balances, or have all three credit cards used with the total balance the same as the one maxed out card.

There seems to be so many factors that changes the FICO score, and I bet the algorithm that calculates this always changes too.

If you have a $3000 credit limit, then a balance of $2436 is likely to impact your score as you’re using a high percentage of your credit. On the other hand, if you have a $15,000 limit it will have no impact at all, since you’re using a low portion of your credit limit. I had FICO scores for a year and didn’t see the score vary, but I was using less than a third of my credit limit. My score is in the upper 700’s, BTW. Used to be over 800, but went down after I paid off my mortgage.

Your credit card balance can impact your FICO score even if you pay the balance in full. If the CC company reports the balance just before you make a payment, then that’s the figure that’s on your credit report and therefore what will impact your FICO score. So if you’re about to borrow a large sum of money for a car or a mortgage, give your plastic a rest starting a month or so before you start making your application, even if you have the money and pay the balance in full. Also, each credit reporting agency gets the balance at a different time of the month, which you likely will see if you get your free annual credit report from each of the 3 agencies at http://www.annualcreditreport.com. I spread my reports out every 4 months instead of getting them all at once so that there will be a shorter time before seeing something happening. The first round of reports resulted in a number of errors which I was able to get corrected.

You are correct with that I can pay something in between the minimum and the balance due. That has been added to the article, thank you

If you can’t pay the credit card bill in full, why do you think your only other choice is to pay the minimum? You can pay something in between the minimum and the balance due.