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My credit score jumped 63 points in one billing cycle and I think it was the $4 balance trick, but am I fooling myself?
Hit 742 last Tuesday after sitting around 679 since January, and the only thing I changed was letting a tiny $4 charge report on one card instead of paying it off before the statement cut. Some folks on here swear you should pay everything to zero before the statement date, but that actually made my score drop about 15 points a while back. My buddy in Denver says the small balance shows lenders you're actually using credit, while another guy told me it's just random noise and I got lucky with timing. So which is it, real strategy or coincidence? Would love to hear if anyone tested this on purpose.
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anthony_wood3616d ago
The $4 trick is basically the credit version of knocking on wood before a free throw, and honestly, that might be all it is. The catch is your score dropped 15 points when you paid everything to zero, which sounds like the classic all-zero penalty for having no active use on your cards that month. Test it again next cycle with the same tiny balance and see if 742 holds, because one jump is a story and two in a row is a pattern.
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