It's more than just paying your bills on time. It's also about utilization. You want to use your cards continuously and pay them off each month. At the same time you want to keep within/under 30 percent of your available credit from all sources. I use a lot of cards and I never get near that. Under utilizing can also work against you. Credit scores are based on risk. If you don't use credit often enough then your risk can't be accessed. 5% is normal fluctuation. It's nothing that would be considered a drop that would be harmful to your creditworthiness unless you had bad credit.

By paying off too early the possibility exists the purchases/payments were not yet reported to the credit bureaus. So it's as if they never occurred and your payment record doesn't show. It's what is both on and off you credit card during the reporting period that matters.

***^I agree with all of that. If you want to raise your score, use your card more and keep paying it off each month. I may have posted this recently: My mom’s house is long since paid off, between SS and investmnents she’s got pretty good income, never late on bills, ever, and we recently found out her credit score is just fair. Wjy? No credit history. As long as it doesb't cause you to spend more than you can affoed, the more you put on your card the better. At leasr that's what has worked for us, virtually everything goes on our cards.

Creditwise uses On-time Payments, Oldest Credit Line, Credit Used, Recent Inquiries, New Accounts and Available Credit to determine your score.

Credit agencies are trying to establish a pattern of responsible financial behavior across time. Your credit score is not going to respond that quickly to on time payments. You build it over time. Late payments and delinquencies will also stay on your credit for a considerable amount of time. The point is not that you paid the bill, the point is you were late, and that will impact your credit for a while because it's a big red flag to future lenders. Especially if it went to collections - it makes zero difference whether you eventually pay it or not.

Moral of the story, keep paying your bills on time and check again in 6 months.

Does your credit card earn any type of bonus for you, such as cash back, points towards airfare, etc.? If so, charge everything, including groceries, then pay the bill off in full each month. You will be earning a bonus (whatever it may be), and not spending any more money than you would if you were paying cash (including by check) for everything. A former coworker of mine did this - he and his husband charged everything, and with the points/bonuses they earned, they were able to take a 3-week trip to Italy with the airfare and hotels completely covered by the earned points/bonuses.

I would never encourage anyone to just charge everything to their credit cards for the sake of bonus points. It can quickly lead to irresponsible spending, and at an average of 2% it would take $100,000 in spending to get $2,000 back. A lot of credit cards also have limit to how much you can earn in various categories, so you'd need to roll multiple cards. Not worth it imo.

Thanks for the information and insight. Going to take your advice and use card more. I do get bonus points on card too. That I have converted to a deposit every month.

Is this ASCII art? Key smash?

Samkaren, it's all a delicate balance that is going to take some patience. I just want to send you hugs

Your credit score or rating is not what you see on your charge bill!! It's a compilation of your trust worthiness to pay back loans over time. When you apply for a LARGE loan that company will do a back ground check. You will give permission for them to get information from any and all creditors you have dealt with in your lifetime up to then. The TV commercials that talk about using this card or app to up your 'score' are FICTION!! They are SELLING a product that will end up one tiny item in an entire list of your spending habits. DO NOT be a sucker and fall for this drivel l! My Discover card feels the need to boost my ego or more likely ENCOURAGE me to use their card more by putting a scale on each bill. According to THEM my score is 840+ and THEY SAY that's up there in the top category. BS BS BS!! If you believe that clap trap I have a bridge in Manhattan I would love to sell you!!! The only way to 'increase your score' is to charge/take out loans and pay them off and OVER TIME you earn a credit rating. Don't be late on payments, pay IN FULL not the minimum payments. It takes TIME there is nothing quick you are going to do. The more you owe the lower your score. The months I put say a trip on our credit card; plane tickets/hotel reservations etc. that silly score I spoke of goes down. It recovers within a couple of months after they see that isn't a trend and it's all paid for as the bill comes in. But that's all FAKE information and has nothing to do with your official credit rating.

According to THEM my score is 840+ and THEY SAY that's up there in the top category. BS BS BS!! If you believe that clap trap I have a bridge in Manhattan I would love to sell you!!!

@arcy_gw - What are you talking about? Each of the credit reporting agencies may have slightly different scores for you, and even within those agencies I believe they have different scales, so it becomes an issue of which score the lender looks at. For example Chase gives me a number based on Experian’s reporting, Equifax from Citi, a different Experian score from Amex. They’re all different but keep within spitting distance of each other, when one dips because of a hard inquiry or large balance or whatever they all do. They’re also all within range of what lenders have told me during a home purchase, refi, etc. Overall if Discover is telling you that you have an 840 then you should have excellent credit.

That's nice Jay, but we do charge almost everything to our credit card and pay it off each month and take the cash back when it amasses. It's like free money and we'll take it. The key is not to spend money you don't have.

There is a lot more to scores and understanding how to utilize/manipulate them. If you have that much time and energy. This site has great people that will help you and answer questions. The search feature is awesome on this site.

https://www.myfico.com/credit-education

Additionally, your credit score is affected by how often you apply for credit and that company searches your credit history.

I will have to completely disagree with Jay as well. We get large bonus checks back from our credit card company. The only bill that can’t be paid with a credit card is my power bill. And now that some law has changed that allows restaurants to charge fees for using credit cards, it would be foolish to go out to eat and pay a fee for using a card and not at the very least get that fee back.

I would guess Arcy is talking about the companies now giving you ”score” number on your statement every month that is not really accuarte. It is probably ball park though.

We charge everything to our cards and pay them off every month. We amass huge returns on the various cards (airline points, hotel points, cash back) that we use strategically while we are planning our vacations. We fly internationally several times per year and rarely pay for our flights with our own money, and we also use the amassed points to upgrade our flight class.

Our credit scores are both 850, and we are meticulous about maintaining that. I was taught from a young age that a good credit score is one of the most valuable things you can have. Although - if you already own a house and you don't need to buy a car, it's not THAT important (but I'm still not going to jeopardize my score with willynilly spending).

Having a great credit score is good but I don't think there's much if any practical difference where in the top tier you are. Will you qualify for a better loan if you have an 850 vs an 800? Doubt it.

Agree with food. I'm not sure how it matters.

We froze our credit report ages ago and have only released that information twice when there was some sizable savings available on a large purchase if we opened an account with the seller. I have no idea what our 'number' is, but it's probably low -- because we have no need to use credit. How ironic is that?

We use cash-back cards for virtually everything. The balance is paid automatically the day it's due.

The only time I'd care about a higher score is if it would substantially reduce our insurance charges. (That's a good chunk of money paid on home, auto, umbrella, a little jewelry.)

" Although - if you already own a house and you don't need to buy a car, it's not THAT important (but I'm still not going to jeopardize my score with willynilly spending). "

Your score is worth attaining and maintaining because you may not be aware of when you might need it.....If you have an unexpected need for a loan, it might come in really handy, and at that point it's too late to build a good score.

I would add that it would be tough to build up a good score with a single card unless you have an extemely high credit limit. That's unlikely if you haven't already built a strong credit history. It comes down to utilization. If you have 3 cards, each with a 10,000 limit and you buy 8000.00 worth of furniture you are still under 30% of utilization. If you only have a single card with for example a 15,000 limit and you spend the same 8000.00 you are way over that recommended 30% and your credit score will take a dive. So maybe that card offers zero interest for a year. That lower score will be on there for a several months. Meanwhile, you apply for another card and the your score dives a bit more. So thinking it's smart to have only a single card is really not that savvy.

Your credit report has to give the impression you do not regularly live beyond your means as a way of survival. The bigger the impression you do--the lower your score. Every time. All the time. .

^^^Partially true but misleading. Someone with no debt is not living beyond their means. My 94 year old mother mentioned above has no debt and doean’t even have a credit card. Can’t get much more “living within your means” than that. Credit score? Last I looked, 688. Fair. . You need to have, use, and prove your ability to manage credit.

My score is 765. Bill I paid off was 127.00 . Bill I paid off in July was 661. I don't buy a lot of stuff (large Bill was car repair).

Still think it's unfair how they drop score.

My score hovers around 800 or just under.

My credit card companies provide free credit score info (FICO, Creditwise, etc.), and list the things that help or hurt my score. Inquiries from other companies will make it drop. Having a long history with zero late payments helps. Having a mix of types of credit helps too evidently. I actually have a number of credit cards I haven't used in a long time, and I understand that keeping the accounts open doesn't hurt my score, but helps, since I'm not using all my available credit, as FOAS pointed out. I keep a balance on a couple of 0% interest cards and pay off over time, which credit companies like, I believe. I always pay more than the minimum.

I recall years ago learning that in the credit card business, people who pay off their balances every month are not well regarded. They want that interest!

IMPE, it pays to call them on late fees and get them wiped, which I've done in the past - the only reason I had late fees was paper bills that went missing, and reminding them that I had no history of delinquencies prior to that was helpful in getting them to erase the charge and the record of it. I blame my hubby who would throw out what he thought was junk mail without checking for bills first - but that was back before I went paperless, so it hasn't been a problem for a long time now.

Just wait and keep checking, you should see your score go back up over time, I think...

P. S. I monitor all my cc accounts to make sure they aren't compromised - I have alerts set up to send email notifications.