Credit Scoring with Your Credit Card: Magic Number is Still “30”

In order to score maximum points towards your credit score, you should always keep your credit card balances below 30% of the credit limit. And one thing many credit users don’t stop to consider is: you don’t know which day of the month your credit card company reports to the credit bureaus.

So you may be paying off your bill in full each month when the statement comes, but if you are charging up the balance during the month to above that 30% mark, and your credit card company chooses that time when your balance is high to report to the bureaus, that’ll cost you points against your score.

Keep Your Balance Low – Or Ask for a Credit Limit Increase

To stay under the 30% magic number, you should either watch your spending to keep your balance low, or you can call the credit card company and ask that your limit amount be raised. If you have a good payment history with them, they’ll be thrilled that you asked because they’ll be expecting you to start charging more on the card so they’ll get to collect more interest from you.

If your balances are higher than 30%, the best and fastest way to raise your score is to pay down these balances. The problem with this plan for many people is that their credit cards have such high interest rates that most of their “extra” payments get eaten up by the interest and fail to reduce the balance by very much each month.

Facing the Real Enemy

So the real enemy you are facing is not the high balance, it is the high interest rate on the credit card. This interest rate reflects the amount of your monthly payment that goes directly towards the credit card company’s profit line without providing you ANY benefit. It did not buy you any goods or services. It just went from your bank account to the corporate vaults of the credit card company, providing you with nothing in return.

If you have several high-interest credit cards, please begin today to attack these accounts with a vengeance. Think of them as masked intruders breaking in to your home and stealing your property. That is what they are doing – stealing your income, your lifestyle, your ability to provide items of real value to your family.

Would You Allow a Thief to Steal From You?

You wouldn’t put up with a thief breaking in to your home and stealing your money every month, would you? Then why put up with that credit card company doing the same thing – stealing your money through the use of high interest charges?

If you have a good payment history on these cards, you can make a simple phone call and request that your interest rate be lowered. If you don’t have good payment history on these cards, then you are at their mercy – just like having a gun held to your head. Start making your payments on time and in a few months you’ll be able to try again calling for a rate reduction. Don’t let them steal your future with high interest rates. Fight back!

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