Paying a Dollar or Two over min. payment will help cred score?

Question

Say if min. amount due is $74 is paying even a dollar over the min. amount same as paying any amount over, to increase your credit score

Answer 1

Sure it may help, but you're still going to have bad credit.

Answer 2

Paying more than the minimum payment always helps your credit score but paying only a dollar or two more helps so marginally that you might not even notice. Paying double the minimum for several months will definitely have an impact. Your credit score is based on how much you pay each month, how that compares to the minimum due, how much you owe, and what percentage of your credit limit is used. So you do have to do more than just a dollar over minimum before you can see any measurable improvement.

Answer 3

Your credit score is based on a secret formula, so it is impossible to know exactly what one needs to do to improve a credit score. However, professionals usually point to two important criteria that are probably part of the formula.

First, credit agencies keep track of how timely your payments are. In this respect, it doesn't matter whether you pay the minimum or $1 over the minimum. The important thing is that you pay at least the minimum on time. Your credit score will rise as you make more timely payments on your debt.

Second, credit agencies look at your overall debt relative to your income. Similarly, they look at the total amount of minimum payments (debt service obligations) that you need to keep your history clean. The higher your overall debt or the higher your debt obligations the lower your credit rating will be.

Answer 4

Paying a little more each payment helps your credit score by allowing you to pay it off faster and save yourself from paying more in interest. What helps your score even more is making sure that every payment is made on time for at least the amount asked for.

Answer 5

Your credit score is affected by so many things. This is not one of them. When it comes to credit cards all they look at is your credit limit, versus how much you owe them. They also look at the age of the account, and if you have ever defaulted etc.

When it comes to the balances they will look at all credit cards combined. Then your total credit available. If you owe less than 50% of the limit, that's good. If you owe less than 33% then that's even better.

Other than that, a couple of extra dollars is not going to help your score at all. It will just help you pay down the cards a fraction sooner.

Answer 6

It will help in the fact that your outstanding debt will be slightly less, and your available credit will be slightly higher. Paying a few extra bucks won't provide for miracles, but it's a step in the right direction.

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