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Is it a good idea to keep a credit card active by purchasing one item every two months or so? I'm trying to stay under 5% utilization for a year or two and only having 1 out of 6 cards report a balance on my CR. I'm trying to still understand the whole gardening thing so i can optimize my credit score
@Anonymous wrote:Is it a good idea to keep a credit card active by purchasing one item every two months or so? I'm trying to stay under 5% utilization for a year or two and only having 1 out of 6 cards report a balance on my CR. I'm trying to still understand the whole gardening thing so i can optimize my credit score
If you need all of your cards to remain open for utilization purposes, then yes, make purchases every so often (2 months is probably conservative, every three months and probably more is fine).
Outside that, I am in the camp of "close or let close unused cards", i.e. cards I don't care about I don't use, and if lenders choose to close, that's fine.
Are you planning on not using some CCs simply because you only want one CC to report? If so, I wouldn't worry about that while you are in the garden. Let as many report each month as you use. But always PIF.
Sure do the 1 CC reporting balance right before you plan on leaving the garden. But, there are no bonus points for doing so for the past 6 months or whatever.
If you are just worried about the CCC closing the account, I have heard the rule of thumb is once every 6 months. I haven't had many CC's in my life. However, the last one I had that was closed for inactivity took 10 years. On the other hand, I have heard Barclay's can take AA if no activity in 3 months. It is definitely YMMV.
One more thing, if you are trying to maximize your score, be sure to have some activity every month for your Discover. Discover does not cut a statement / report to a CRA, when there is no activity. The same would apply to any other CCC with a similar policy.