<prompt> Human: I had brain surgery 6 years ago and had to file chapter 7 bankruptcy because of medical bills over 500,000. I owned a home and car but they were taken because of it. Now 2 years since finalized, I want to buy again. I have done everything I could to help my credit and I finally had my score rose from 520 to 730. It was all through a new car loan and credit cards. I have saved over 5000 but owe 2300 on my credit card. Im afraid not having a good down-payment will hurt me but Ive heard they look at credit card balances more. Will I have a chance in getting a loan or should I just pay off the credit card and save more. I can save roughly 300month after all bills are paid. Assistant: Pay off the credit card and then keep saving. You dont have anywhere near enough for a downpayment on a house yet anyway. Also having a credit card that has had zero balance for any period of time looks REALLY good to any bank. Dont terminate the card unless the fees are excessive, just cut up the physical card so you arent tempted to actually use it.Human: Ive been told that I have to use the card at least once a month to make me look active to the bank, and to also leave a balance because banks like earning interest and it looks more profitable to them. I agree that 2300 is excessive but isnt that better than nothing?  <response>: No. leaving any amount unpaid on your card will look really bad to any bank no matter the circumstance.What you may have heard of is people who use a credit card for all of their expenses and pay it off IN FULL at the end of EVERY month. Now there are genuine benefits to doing thisdepending on the card, having all expenses on a card makes budgets much easier to keep track of on a granular level. Also depending on the card you may not incur any interest or fees if you pay off the balance at the end of the month. Doing this does look really good to a bank, but only if you pay it off EVERY month. It shows that you have a good hold on your expenses but those gains can be lost quite easily by leaving any amount on the card for more than a months so if you decide to go down this route be very careful.What you are doing right now is keeping a debt of thousands of dollars which you could easily pay off open and accruing interest. The bank is not going to look kindly on this.Edit:a word 