@Anonymous wrote:Just checked credit karma today and it said I had 28 inquiries left on my TU. Probably same thing with EX. And I have like 15 left on my EQ. It's nice to think I was an anti-gardener back then and just kept applying card after card and being successful with the latest being the chase ink plus. Now I have top cards from every major bank, lost interest in credit cards, and don't feel like gardening is such a hard task. The moral of the story is to listen to yourself and do what you think is best for your situation. Everything you receive is just advice. Cheers.
Sure, no-one ever said that people must minimize inquiries and utilization, and that you must apply strategically, and maintain a good FICO score, or you will never be able to obtain credit cards. But just obtaining credit cards isn't really the point. What were the starting limits? Starting APR? How successful were you at getting CLI's, and how many INQ's did that take? etc.
You can get more of the "Bacon", if you don't keep applying for card after card, and use a more knowledgeable approach. Scientia potentia est...
@Themanwhocan wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Just checked credit karma today and it said I had 28 inquiries left on my TU. Probably same thing with EX. And I have like 15 left on my EQ. It's nice to think I was an anti-gardener back then and just kept applying card after card and being successful with the latest being the chase ink plus. Now I have top cards from every major bank, lost interest in credit cards, and don't feel like gardening is such a hard task. The moral of the story is to listen to yourself and do what you think is best for your situation. Everything you receive is just advice. Cheers.
Sure, no-one ever said that people must minimize inquiries and utilization, and that you must apply strategically, and maintain a good FICO score, or you will never be able to obtain credit cards. But just obtaining credit cards isn't really the point. What were the starting limits? Starting APR? How successful were you at getting CLI's, and how many INQ's did that take? etc.
You can get more of the "Bacon", if you don't keep applying for card after card, and use a more knowledgeable approach. Scientia potentia est...
Or realize there were better personal goals like chasing a mortgage which took me 3.5 years to do after starting to build my credit. Doesn't apply to everyone.
Admittedly once I no longer cared (keys in hand) I went a little off the rails and tacked on another 100K of limits without blinking twice, and realized yesterday when I was planning my spending for the next two months to micromanage my spending, I could get by and be pretty OK on 4 personal 1 business card for the moment. Yeah =/.
That post-mortgage spree has come around to haunt me somewhat even if I didn't do tremendous damage to my credit report nor score (other than getting the mortgage and watching my scores tank 20-25 points across FICO 8 but I digress) life changed, I'm suddenly going back to school, and I should look into some smarter financing options than simply taking a loan against the 401k.
All of those require credit, some better than where my scores are today for reasonable rates (other than the Fed Student Loan option which is looking more and more attractive since I'm going to be aggressively paying anyway... and watch me tack on 8 more tradelines which is a little lame but that's student loans for you), but while credit is useless if you don't use it, it does help being prepared to be able to take opportunities when they come up which having a pretty credit report does enable and as such non-strategic apps aren't really the best of ideas.
@Revelate wrote:
@Themanwhocan wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Just checked credit karma today and it said I had 28 inquiries left on my TU. Probably same thing with EX. And I have like 15 left on my EQ. It's nice to think I was an anti-gardener back then and just kept applying card after card and being successful with the latest being the chase ink plus. Now I have top cards from every major bank, lost interest in credit cards, and don't feel like gardening is such a hard task. The moral of the story is to listen to yourself and do what you think is best for your situation. Everything you receive is just advice. Cheers.
Sure, no-one ever said that people must minimize inquiries and utilization, and that you must apply strategically, and maintain a good FICO score, or you will never be able to obtain credit cards. But just obtaining credit cards isn't really the point. What were the starting limits? Starting APR? How successful were you at getting CLI's, and how many INQ's did that take? etc.
You can get more of the "Bacon", if you don't keep applying for card after card, and use a more knowledgeable approach. Scientia potentia est...
Or realize there were better personal goals like chasing a mortgage which took me 3.5 years to do after starting to build my credit. Doesn't apply to everyone.
Admittedly once I no longer cared (keys in hand) I went a little off the rails and tacked on another 100K of limits without blinking twice, and realized yesterday when I was planning my spending for the next two months to micromanage my spending, I could get by and be pretty OK on 4 personal 1 business card for the moment. Yeah =/.
That post-mortgage spree has come around to haunt me somewhat even if I didn't do tremendous damage to my credit report nor score (other than getting the mortgage and watching my scores tank 20-25 points across FICO 8 but I digress) life changed, I'm suddenly going back to school, and I should look into some smarter financing options than simply taking a loan against the 401k.
All of those require credit, some better than where my scores are today for reasonable rates (other than the Fed Student Loan option which is looking more and more attractive since I'm going to be aggressively paying anyway... and watch me tack on 8 more tradelines which is a little lame but that's student loans for you), but while credit is useless if you don't use it, it does help being prepared to be able to take opportunities when they come up which having a pretty credit report does enable and as such non-strategic apps aren't really the best of ideas.
Very well said. 