Advice on closing accounts

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I'm 19 years old and have splurged with my credit cards, but I'm trying to turn it around. I've paid down my balances, with some cards paid off entirely. Moreover, I have 8 credit cards open, with the oldest being around 1 year old. So with that, I want to close some cards that I don't think I'll need so that I don't build a lengthy history or high limit with them. But before I do all of this I would like some advice from the professionals out there.

Rundown of cards: Barclays ($1200), Amazon store ($1200), Walmart store ($700), Deserve (formerly Selfscore) ($300), Fingerhut ($900), Gettington ($300), Capital One ($200), and Credit One ($300).

The cards I want to remove are: Gettington, Credit One, and possibly Capital One (MAYBE!!) OR Deserve

The cards I want to remove are recent, low balance cards that I don't want to have hanging around. My credit utilitization won't take that much of a hit as the cards were just paid down. I don't see use for Gettington because it's as bad as Fingerhut (which I regretfully used to establish my credit), and Credit One...is just Credit One. Capital One (secured) just has a low balance and high APR, but I'm nearing the 6 month mark so we'll see. Deserve has a higher limit, it was opened around the same time as Cap One, but the APR is A LOT less and I get Amazon Prime Student free (which may or may not be a good thing).

I'm not going to close any within the next three months, but after that I'm closing them.I want to get them all to absolute 0 and let that report for a few months. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[Anonymous]

FICO likes to see 5 cards all ages 24 months each.

Can you just the approval date of each card so we can see where you are at there?

Is only your oldest a year old or are a few of them?

I would close the bottom line rebuilders and age the rest but I wouldn't drop under 5 open CCs.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hello!

I'm 19 years old and have splurged with my credit cards, but I'm trying to turn it around. I've paid down my balances, with some cards paid off entirely. Moreover, I have 8 credit cards open, with the oldest being around 1 year old. So with that, I want to close some cards that I don't think I'll need so that I don't build a lengthy history or high limit with them. But before I do all of this I would like some advice from the professionals out there.

Rundown of cards: Barclays ($1200), Amazon store ($1200), Walmart store ($700), Deserve (formerly Selfscore) ($300), Fingerhut ($900), Gettington ($300), Capital One ($200), and Credit One ($300).

The cards I want to remove are: Gettington, Credit One, and possibly Capital One (MAYBE!!) OR Deserve

The cards I want to remove are recent, low balance cards that I don't want to have hanging around. My credit utilitization won't take that much of a hit as the cards were just paid down. I don't see use for Gettington because it's as bad as Fingerhut (which I regretfully used to establish my credit), and Credit One...is just Credit One. Capital One (secured) just has a low balance and high APR, but I'm nearing the 6 month mark so we'll see. Deserve has a higher limit, it was opened around the same time as Cap One, but the APR is A LOT less and I get Amazon Prime Student free (which may or may not be a good thing).

I'm not going to close any within the next three months, but after that I'm closing them.I want to get them all to absolute 0 and let that report for a few months. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

---

My advice would be to shred those 3 cards but not close them. Unless there's an annual fee, in which case you should close any of them that that has an annual fee.

[Anonymous]

Keep Barclays, Amazon, Wal-Mart and CapOne.  Thes rest are garbage.  Don't worry about 5 cards.  You're 19.  Also, if you can't control yourself from spending, cut up any of the remaining 4 you need to in order to not spend.  Just don't close those ones.  That said, if you can't control yourself, maybe you're not ready for this game.  The temptation only gets worse as banks start throwing you $5k-$10k lines, or higher.  If you do decide to take the next step, use the share-secured loan method with Alliant to add an installment line to your file.  

**EDIT** Forgot to add....DON'T GET ANY MORE CARDS.  For at least a year.  Maybe more if you think you'll have a hard time resisting the urge to spend.  You've made a great decision starting to build credit this early, but it can easily turn into a nightmare with a few poor decisions.  Good luck.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

FICO likes to see 5 cards all ages 24 months each.

 

---

ABCD, is there a difference in FICO scoring if the above factor is the only difference between two profiles?

Consider identical age of accounts factors... AAoA, AoOA, AoYA between two profiles.  Say the only difference was one profile had 5 revolvers that are 24+ months old where the other had 5 revolvers that were say 20-23 months old.  I've never considered this to be a difference in scoring, but would like to hear about it if so.

[arkane]

I've read EQ 8 dings you for having >33% revolvers reporting balances, so you'll need at least 4 cards to maximize scoring there (1/4 = 25%). But yeah not sure about 5 cards, so curious to know as well.

[HeavenOhio]

Keep: Barclays, Amazon store, Walmart store, Deserve, and Capital One (unless Capital One has a fee)

Dump: Fingerhut, Gettington, and Credit One