Help me understand?

Hawkgxy

Hi all,

I'm very, very new to the idea of credit cards, store cards and all credit related kinds of things. I'm 23, and for my whole life, my mother told me that credit cards were a very bad thing to have! Now, imagine my shock when during the purchase of a rather large item at Argos, she suggested I accept the offer of joining their store card scheme. Sounds good to me, spreading out the cost of such a hefty item is definitely beneficial to my minimum wage ha.

However, there are still some things I do not understand and I hope this is the right place to ask.
1. I understand 100% that my credit score will benefit from having this card and paying off the item in full during the loan period. The lady 'selling' the card suggested that it is far better to spread payments out over a number of months rather than to pay in a lump sum as this looks better to my credit score?
2. If this is the case, how do I know the best times to repay the loan? Do I get some sort of monthly statement that I should pay by? Does it negatively go against me in any way if I have already made a £20 payment towards the loan in my excitement of receiving the card? My mother suggested that this payment - while it counts towards the loan, will have no effect on my credit score because I didn't wait for a bill?

Please help me understand!

DCFC79

Hawkgxy wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm very, very new to the idea of credit cards, store cards and all credit related kinds of things. I'm 23, and for my whole life, my mother told me that credit cards were a very bad thing to have! Now, imagine my shock when during the purchase of a rather large item at Argos, she suggested I accept the offer of joining their store card scheme. Sounds good to me, spreading out the cost of such a hefty item is definitely beneficial to my minimum wage ha.

However, there are still some things I do not understand and I hope this is the right place to ask.
1. I understand 100% that my credit score will benefit from having this card and paying off the item in full during the loan period. The lady 'selling' the card suggested that it is far better to spread payments out over a number of months rather than to pay in a lump sum as this looks better to my credit score?
2. If this is the case, how do I know the best times to repay the loan? Do I get some sort of monthly statement that I should pay by? Does it negatively go against me in any way if I have already made a £20 payment towards the loan in my excitement of receiving the card? My mother suggested that this payment - while it counts towards the loan, will have no effect on my credit score because I didn't wait for a bill?

Please help me understand!

Nothing wrong with credit cards if you use them correctly, dont max them out.
Problem is people will spend spend spend on them, dont keep teack of the spending and get fubarred when they find out the card is maxed out.

Your credit score is only seen by you, lenders only see your history.

As for points 1 and 2 I dont have the answer, I know if you pay the min plus £1 it looks good.

sourcrates

You get a monthly statement with a “pay by date”.

Make sure you pay on time, don’t worry about the score.

Try not to get over exited at an inanimate piece of plastic in future.

Ben8282

Hawkgxy wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm very, very new to the idea of credit cards, store cards and all credit related kinds of things. I'm 23, and for my whole life, my mother told me that credit cards were a very bad thing to have! Now, imagine my shock when during the purchase of a rather large item at Argos, she suggested I accept the offer of joining their store card scheme. Sounds good to me, spreading out the cost of such a hefty item is definitely beneficial to my minimum wage ha.

However, there are still some things I do not understand and I hope this is the right place to ask.
1. I understand 100% that my credit score will benefit from having this card and paying off the item in full during the loan period. The lady 'selling' the card suggested that it is far better to spread payments out over a number of months rather than to pay in a lump sum as this looks better to my credit score?
2. If this is the case, how do I know the best times to repay the loan? Do I get some sort of monthly statement that I should pay by? Does it negatively go against me in any way if I have already made a £20 payment towards the loan in my excitement of receiving the card? My mother suggested that this payment - while it counts towards the loan, will have no effect on my credit score because I didn't wait for a bill?

Please help me understand!

Why are you suddenly so obsessed with your credit score? Everything you say is credit score credit score credit score as if it is actually in some way important and actually means anything. You have been able to obtain credit without apparent difficulty so what are you so concerned about?
Does this store card come with any introductory 0% interest offer on this purchase? If not, then your only concern (other than not missing payments or paying late) should be to reduce the balance as quickly as you can to save paying the probably quite high interest being charged on this store card.
Of course it doesn't go against you to have already repaid £20 off of this loan. Why should it? How did you know how to make this payment as you seen totally unaware of when you should make payments and even if you will receive a statement.

Hawkgxy wrote: »

The lady 'selling' the card suggested that it is far better to spread payments out over a number of months rather than to pay in a lump sum as this looks better to my credit score?

This lady is very good at her job. She has managed to sell you the idea that spreading out the payments will somehow look better and boost your imaginary credit score number. I imagine her employer would not have been pleased if she had said 'Pay it off as slowly as possible over many many months so we can charge you lots of interest every month and make a nice big profit out of you'.