Another interesting credit card article

[nbodyhome]

I thought this was interesting, I'd never have thought that so many people had 10 credit cards (or 45!), and that "under 10" was recommended.

http://money.aol.com/bankrate/credi...it-cards-should-you-have/20060706154109990002

 

[MrsPete]

I thought this was interesting, I'd never have thought that so many people had 10 credit cards (or 45!), and that "under 10" was recommended.

http://money.aol.com/bankrate/credi...it-cards-should-you-have/20060706154109990002

Even if you pay them off every month (and ignore the hits on your credit score), this seems like a bad idea. If you divide your spending among so many cards, your reward points will never add up to anything on any one card.

 

[Chicago526]

I'm trying to think how many I have and had to stop and count. I have 8 total, 3 major and 5 store. I'd close them but I've heard that closing them will ding your credit. So whats worse, keeping them open or closing them? I know I should keep the one I've had the longest open, but what about the rest?

 

[ButterflyJen]

I agree, what's worse? Closing, or keeping? My DH and I have three major CCs and we DON'T need all three. But I thought closing them was worse for your credit.

 

[nbodyhome]

Between the 2 of us, we have 5 cards - and there are 1 or 2 we'd close, but I am not sure what would happen as far as credit. I'd thought of getting rid of the US Airways after 1 year (before the fee kicks in) next year - but again, I am not sure on if that will hurt our credit. I don't think it's supposed to be terrible, as long as you don't do it often.

I don't understand why it'd be an issue, but I know it is.

 

[ceecee]

We have a Target card (we use it for prescriptions and Target spending to get the 10% off). Disney (for rewards) and USAirways card (for miles). That fiqure includes all credit such as cars, mortgage, etc. Seems like a lot to me too. We cancelled our Discover card and a Kroger card we had for rewards prior to the air miles card. When we got our mortgage (18 yrs ago) we were just getting married and they adviced us to choose two cards and cancel the rest. I don't see how that can hurt your credit. If you have 10 cards with 10,000 limit on each you could charge up to 100,000. That's the way it was explained to us.

 

[Laurie Disney]

My husband's friend is a mortgage broker and he says that you should not close your credit card accounts. He says it will lower your credit rating score. It looks good when you have credit cards open with little to zero balances on them. It shows that you have all this available credit, but is not used. We have done what he said by not closing accounts after we paid them off, and I score went up.


Hope this helps!!!

 

[findlister]

You can close your credit cards without effecting your credit score. Just tell the credit card company to state that your card was closed at the request of the user and ask them to send you the closing statement with that on it to make sure they do that. If it is closed at your request, it will not effect your credit score.

 

[rparmfamily]

You do want to keep them open, it lowers your utilization %, which is tied into your credit score.

 

[MyGoofy26]

It'll only ding your credit score noticeably to close the accounts IF you have higher utilization on the remaining cards or if they're among your oldest cards. The age won't hurt until they fall off the report though, so you have 7 years to build your history to negate the hit. The utilization is the big thing though. Do not cancel until the other cards are paid down to at least 50%, hopefully 30% or less. And definitely DO NOT cancel them if they still have a balance. Some people do that, they'll cancel the card so it can't be used while they pay it off. . . and it's KILLING utilization when they do that. But if the CCs your cancelling are paid off, and the ones you're keeping are paid off or down, then don't worry about it. . go ahead and cancel.

 

[GotFids]

We were told by a financial planner to cut the cards up, but keep the accounts active. It looks good to have zero or low balances and lots of available credit. It is very good to always pay the balance or at least double the minimum payment due each month. That really makes your score go up. These methods helped us tremendously.