BellaOnline Forums Money Abundance & Wealth Is it good to pay off credit cards?

Wishing you luck on the house thing, Jilly, the next couple years seem like a good time to buy. I agree with you on paying certain ones first.

And sometimes credit reports show little surprises you didn't know or forgot about. Years ago, a video I returned late was put on my credit report with a large late fee. I had moved around so much that I hadn't seen a bill. Until I'm trying to buy a house.

To me, the only thing handy about credit cards seems to be when traveling, renting cars, and making reservations.

I like to keep our credit cards paid off for my own peace of mind, let alone my credit score.

I do use one I have for the cash back feature - which I most use it at Costco for my monthly Costco run- but I transfer the money right away via my web bill pay, just like if I'd spent it right out of my check book.

We are carrying one balance because we had to get a new A/C and couldn't come up with that much cash on the spot. I've been working hard on paying it down tho.

I liked your article about thriving in a negative economy. I think people with home biz might thrive as more people are looking for that little part time income or at least a way to help make commissions to cover their own purchases.

I read also, you should use your credit cards at least once every six months to "keep them active."

Credit cards have become a way of life - look at the rental car industry. It's almost impossible to rent a car without one.

Thanks, Denise! I hope I will be able to get a house in this nice, soft housing market!!! This is the time to buy, if one can do it.

I use my debit card as a credit card. If I don't have the money - then I don't need whatever it is.

> you should not pay OFF revolving and installment credit if you want a good credit score.

Odd -- my dh and I have very high credit ratings, and the only debt we have had are our student loans, our first house, our first car. We had looked at houses when we lived in VA during the worst time to buy a house there, so I know what our credit ratings were then -- and that is after 3 yrs of almost no income. (We had money socked away that we lived on.) Fortunately, because the market was so crazy, our house offers were outbid, so we weren't stuck with a huge mortgage, and were free to move when a job in an area we like better came up.

But if having SOME debt is how it goes up, there is no way we could have had ratings that high.

>I use my debit card as a credit card. If I don't have the money - then I don't need whatever it is.

Well, that's the way we use our credit card -- only with them, we get something back, which wouldn't happen with a debit.

I definitely don't want to go back to a cash-only society. Dealing with cash is both a huge risk theft-wise as well as having no tracking system. When I pay by credit card everything tracks exactly, I import it into QuickBooks and I have a permanent record of every thing in a legally documentable way. So I am very much in favor of credit, used wisely of course

We just got a large (but not too large) amount of money from DH's grandma who passed away. He made the decision (I told him it was 100% his decision since it was his money) to buy an LCD TV. We put some in savings, and we put the rest of it to paying off our home equity loan (which is really money from all DH's credit cards before we got married plus part of the expense from the wedding.)

So now we're looking to have THAT paid off within the year, which is exciting, and his student loan will be paid off within the year, AND we have very little on credit cards (we could pay it all off right now if we wanted, but since we aren't getting charged interest at this moment, we are putting it off to put greater payments towards the other stuff.)

Also, we pay an extra $1500 on the house every year, and they estimated that it will be paid off in 22 years instead of 30. I am looking to increase the amount once these other two things are paid off.

I am feeling VERY good about getting rid of our debt! Whoo hoo!

to rebuild my credit after my bankruptsy ( i am in year 5 or 6 now) I was told to pay down some of my debts first. Then get utilities and such in MY NAME only. Paying those regularly etc helps repair.

Then I was told to get a finance loan type of loan that was an installment credit or revolving credit. I took out 300 and paid my installments plus a little. After every two payments I refinance it. So it looks like I paid it off and took out the 300 in credit. I have done that for the last year ish. Now I upped my credit to 500 and will be paying off that and refinancing it every 2-3 payments. It has raised my credit score because they report every quarter verses most credit card companies that report only a couple times a year.

Credit cards have a place in our economy and don't seem like they are going away too soon - don't you think the key is using them wisely?