Are you making this credit score mistake?Many people believe that running up credit card balances, then making on time payments or paying it in full each month will build higher credit scores. This is nothing more than a FAIRY TALE!

You don't need to carry a balance or use your card in order to build credit.This ongoing misconception will normally be mentioned around friends or other personal finance chit chat, and of certainly spread online through social media and even videos - but this is not sound advice -- especially if your credit has problems you are dealing with at the moment.If you need to carry a balance over a month that is 30-percent or more of the available credit, it translates to you needing to use credit, and are not able to pay off the balance. This is considered a weak utilization of credit, and ends up in lower credit scores which means bad credit.

For people who carry a very small balance, or even better, a zero balance, it means you have credit readily available, almost never need to access it, and able to pay if off fast and easy - are all GREAT attributes and leads to superb credit and higher FICO scores.

You should never ever, ever, get in a situation where you are late on the payment if you want to have solidly high credit scores. The moment you are ready to buy a home, your goal should be to have the highest credit scores possible to obtain the best available interest rates.