As long as you are spending a little on every card you have and paying that amount off in full every month that all should help you improve your credit score over time.

FrankN wrote: I would recommend spending 2% to 10% on the cards to keep them active and in good standing. As long as you pay them off each month, you should be in a good spot.

I've never paid attention to that, but will start doing so. Glad you brought this up. I generally use the card that is offering the most return in points or cash back, but I can see how spending a certain percentage each month would be effective as well.

FrankN wrote: Thats a good idea. I use one credit card for food, one for personal/entertainment, one for utilities, and one for everything else. This personally helps me keep track of my budget.

That's a good idea. Maybe I'll do that instead. We have a tendency to go over budget sometimes on groceries and entertainment, so seeing the charges on the credit card would probably help keep things in check,

Absolutely. Those credit card % of brutal. Even a couple hundred bucks on 15%+ really adds up.

FrankN wrote: Thats a good idea. I use one credit card for food, one for personal/entertainment, one for utilities, and one for everything else. This personally helps me keep track of my budget.

That's the same system I use. Normally credit cards are useful tools, but when there's an emergency it is very easy to dig into the spare and then have to spend a lot of time paying it off and the interest. I suspect that is what gets a lot of responsible spenders into trouble.

Thats a good idea. I use one credit card for food, one for personal/entertainment, one for utilities, and one for everything else. This personally helps me keep track of my budget.

Goldbug wrote:

FrankN wrote: Agreed. It is more important to put charges on the card AND ALSO PAY THEM OFF, then to worry about the %. As long as you are using them regularly paying them off, you should be improving your score over time.

One of the easiest ways to do this is have the card take a regular small charge each month automatically, by using it to pay a recurring bill. Then have an automatic transfer from your bank to the card to pay it off. That way you don't have to worry about one of the cards being overlooked, or rotating through them.

This is my plan once I get the cards paid down. I'll assign a different utility to each card and it won't be a problem to pay them off each month since those are bills I would have to pay anyway.

FrankN wrote: Agreed. It is more important to put charges on the card AND ALSO PAY THEM OFF, then to worry about the %. As long as you are using them regularly paying them off, you should be improving your score over time.

One of the easiest ways to do this is have the card take a regular small charge each month automatically, by using it to pay a recurring bill. Then have an automatic transfer from your bank to the card to pay it off. That way you don't have to worry about one of the cards being overlooked, or rotating through them.

Agreed. It is more important to put charges on the card AND ALSO PAY THEM OFF, then to worry about the %. As long as you are using them regularly paying them off, you should be improving your score over time.

You would have to really get into the fine print of each agency and see how often they report CC activity. If they report every month and you use a card every 2 months, you might get docked for inactivity. The time frames might differ.

But if 10% is too much to manage, just do 2 or 3%.

Tishbel wrote:

FrankN wrote: I would recommend spending 2% to 10% on the cards to keep them active and in good standing. As long as you pay them off each month, you should be in a good spot.

Do you have to spend that on each card every month? I thought you could get away with rotating cards and spending 10% on each card every few months to keep the card active and on your credit report?

That's a good question. My balances are kind of high right now due to a four month layoff, but I'm working on getting them down and then I then need to maintain them properly.

FrankN wrote: I would recommend spending 2% to 10% on the cards to keep them active and in good standing. As long as you pay them off each month, you should be in a good spot.

Do you have to spend that on each card every month? I thought you could get away with rotating cards and spending 10% on each card every few months to keep the card active and on your credit report?

I would recommend spending 2% to 10% on the cards to keep them active and in good standing. As long as you pay them off each month, you should be in a good spot.

This is exactly what my husband and I are trying to do right now. We are trying to pay down the credit cards that we have, while still keeping them active. Once this happens, is there a minimum that we should spend each month to keep these cards in good standing?

Curry wrote: What you do now PS, if you haven't already, is learn how to be debt free. Owning credit cards doesn't mean you always have to be in debt.

I completely agree that having credit cards doesn't automatically have to equal having debt. My husband and I have multiple cards between us, but we try to save them for big purchases when we can earn cash back or points and also pay it off within a month or two.