Using your credit card actively without the negative impact on your creditscore

When you have a rewards credit card you want to maximize those rewards and only way to do that is to use your credit card to pay for everything possible that will yield rewards. For my American Express that I get at least 1% on all payments including my phone bill and internet so I use it to pay everything. The problem is that my monthly spending exceeds my credit limit and you are only supposed to use up 30% of your limit anyways so what to do?

Well what I do is I pay off my balance few times a month or right after a large purchase. I always reduce or even pay off completely my balance before my billing perion ends that way American Express only reports a small balance or no balance to the credit bureaus. That has also improved my ability to increase my credit limit. I’ve already dobled my credit limit to $4000 and I expect to increase it by another $2000 shortly. That would mean that I’ve tripled my available credit in less than 12 months.

Before you do this make sure your credit card company allows you to pay off your balance in advance. I’ve notice that Capital One doesn’t let you make advance payments. That’s why I only have one small recurring payment going on my Capital One secured credit card in hopes that some day they will increase my pathetic $400 credit limit to something more reasonable or at least convert it to a non secured one.