<prompt> Human: My wife and I got a capital one secured card a few months ago to start rebuilding our awful credit. It finally started reporting, her score went up 68 points, mine 40. We have been buying little stuff here and there just to show usage, but we usually pay it off within a few days of spending any money. Ive read conflicting info on it and wanted to ask the pros, how should we balance our spending and payments to make the most of the card?  <response>: Its unnecessary to pay it off immediately after buying. Credit cards have a monthly billingstatement cycle, and the standard practice is to spend during the statement cycle, receive the statement, and then pay the statement balance in full before the due date on the statement.Paying as you spend wont significantly harm you, but it isnt necessary and may limit your potential score growth slightly if your statement balance ends up being 0 because you already paid everything off before the statement was generated. The reason for this is because that 0 balance will be reported to the credit bureaus, and the scoring algorithms will treat it as if you didnt use your credit. If you pay most everything off early but leave a small amount to show on the statement, you wont have this issue, but in general its just unnecessarily complex to pay off each time you use the card.This is not the same as the common myth saying that you should leave a balance on your card month to month and pay it off slowly, accruing interest. That is not true and you should always pay off the full balance after the statement is generated, just not necessarily before. 