If I pay off my CC monthly on time do I pay interest?
It depends on the terms of your agreement but typically you get up to about 2 months to pay for something interest free, then you're charged
Suppose your agreement runs from 1st of each month(the date your statement is issued). You buy something on Jan 1st. This won't be on the statement you get on Jan 1st. It will be on the Feb 1st statement which means you have until approx March 1st to get a payment to them to pay it off. If your March statement arrives and you haven't paid off the full amount of the item, then you're charged interest and that might be on the part or the whole.
Payments are typically allocated to the oldest item first. This means if you buy a 50 quid item on Jan 1st, and a 100 quid item on Jan 2nd, you're notified of both on the Feb statement.
If you make a payment of 100 quid on Feb 25th, 50 quid of that payment pays off the Jan 1st item and 50 quid is allocated against the 100 quid item. On the March statement you'll find you're being charged interest and that might either be against the 50 quid you still owe for the 100 quid item, or if they're really shafting you it might be interest on 100 quid even though you've paid part of it, and the interest runs from the date of the transaction. You might realise some crazy situation where you spend £10000, pay off £9999.99 of it and are then banged hundreds of pounds in interest because you haven't cleared the open item, even though you technically only owe 1p
None of this typically applies to cash taken out on a credit card, which accrues interest from the moment it is withdrawn til the moment it is paid off, and payments you make are often allocated to cash last.
If you're not paying your card in full, make sure you understand where your payments are going and what they're allocated against. If you balance transfer a large amount to a credit card and then start using it to buy more things you'll probably find your payments go to paying off the balance transfer, leaving your purchases to rack up healthy wedges of interest
All this is on your agreement; be sure to read it.
I recommend you set up a direct debit to pay the card off in full each month, and don't bounce it. Also leverage any sensible spending control and text message reminders they have.
Usually BS as there is no free lunch - there isn't a fee you see but it's built into the exchange rate you get. e.g. xe.com says 1 quid buys you 1.15 euros, but your local travel place either gives you 113 euros for your 100 quid because their rate is 1.13 or they charge you 101.75 quid when you ask for 115 euros because their rate is 1.15 and their fee is 1.75%. In these cases you notionally paid virtually the same amount
You'll need to work out what the cost is for your context of what you're going to purchase, and how often and when an fee applies (is it once a day, one per transaction etc)
