@Anonymous wrote:What if I had a card with a $2000 limit but I only put $20 a month on it (payed in full). Any potential adverse effects?
No, none at all.
A high quality card is one that works for you. If you care about rewards, then find ones which suit your spending profile. If you hate the idea of annual fees (especially if you aren't using your cards much anyway), find ones with none.
If you're just picking up a few cards for tradeline farms rather than putting your spending through it, pick up a card on at least two major networks, preferable without AF. If I were doing just that I'd do one with whoever I bank with assuming they offer a $0 AF, an Amex BCE, and a credit union vis a vis DCU or similar.
As Walt suggests: minimum 2, 3 is anecdotally slightly better. Get an installment loan or two after that and you're simply done from a FICO perspective in terms of requisite tradelines. I'd personally do 3, as he also points out, 1/3 cards reporting a balance is optimal anecdotally, 1/2 isn't in our experience (want less than half of your cards reporting a balance).
Personally if I were you from a credit perspective, I'd run your life through your cards and still treat them as debit cards. You may decide you want more things out of credit cards and other loan products later, and it makes it very, very easy to analyze your spending patterns which has all sorts of benefits from an overall financial management perspective.
@LearningMoreAboutCredit wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:If you PIF (and make payments every few days too to keep revolving utilization low) and are only spending 500$-$1000 a month on credit, is it pointless to have 5 cards since you'd be dividing your spending to about 100$ per card?
I want to know if it's better for my credit to have around 4 or 5 cards and divide the spending between them or only have 1-3?
Which would be better for my credit?Thanks
The answer to your question depends on your spending habits and your ability to pay as well as other factors. However, if you have at least three cards (preferably V, MC. AMEX, or Disc) you should be fine. Keep your utilization to a minimum (optimum range <10%) and continue to PIF if that is your payment habit.
Think quality of cards versus quantity of cards and treat your cc's like a debit card...charge no more than you can pay off each month. Select the card(s) that fit YOUR spending habits and most importantly don't fall for app envy...it is very easy to do when participating in forums like these related to credit. Good luck and much success to you.
Tell me about it! Before I joined this forum, I was very content with just 2 cards. After joining this forum, I couldn't help applying cards. I have acquired total 7 new cards over the past 5 months. 
My EQ FICO score has dropped from 802 to 732...for now. The last two cards I acquired have not yet been reported.
@DigitalArk wrote:My EQ FICO score has dropped from 802 to 732...for now. The last two cards I acquired have not yet been reported.
DigitalArk, if you would be so kind... what is the average age of your accounts, and what is the age of your oldest account?? plz, thanks!!
Starting Scores: Low 500's 2/27/08
As others have said, the number doesn't really matter. But I personally have one from each major payment network (V, MC, AMEX, Disc) so that you'll never run into the situation where a merchant says "Sorry, we don't take that kind of card". It's more how you use them (ie, do you pay each on time, keep low balances, preferably only have one report a balance etc).
@AndySoCal wrote:I agree a second card can help the score to the degree it lowers the credit utilization. There may be some other ways it might help but that would depend on the persons credit history. I would like to see score factors before and after where it helped I find that interesting. (I am not asking you to provide the info) I would not agree that having X number cards is but if you have Z number cards is better for your score. I agree having a second card as a back up or just in case is not a bad idea.
I'm basing this pretty much on memory. There are a reasonable number of threads where people who are rebuilding or just beginning report seeing fairly significant increases when adding a second card, which surprises them because they've been told to expect a decrease in their score due to lowering of AAoA and the new inquiry.
People that are new to credit or rebuilding often have one card that has a low limit. And at least for the newer people (though not necessarily the rebuilders), they probably don't understand the ins and outs of controlling your reported utilization. So I will allow for the distinct possibility that all we were seeing is someone with a $300 limit that charges $250/month and is paying in full but unwittingly maxing out his card, and with the addition of a second card, suddenly going from 80%+ to a much more palatable utilization. I don't remember that being the case, but I don't remember these threads addressing it one way or the other.
I can't immediately think of an effective search that would pull all of those threads together to look to see if there are enough details to piece together what was going on. There's not really a unique term that comes to mind. If I think of something, I'll let you know (I know you weren't asking me to provide the info, but you raise a fair point and I'm curious as well).
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)