I've been rebuilding my credit with small limit store cards. Now I have a few rewards cards and find the store cards useless. The only ones I would keep are the Walmart one for the FICO score, maybe the Target card for the 5% discount. I don't really shop at the other stores where I have cards - maybe just for the holidays. I haven't closed them because of utilization. I'm maxed out with Chase Slate because of BTs (and shopping to fill my house).
I still have a lot more to buy, so I'm going to have plenty of use with the rewards cards. I will probably leave some balances just because I honestly don't have a lot of money to pay in full for furniture and household stuff. I have no plans in the near future to apply for any credit, so I feel that for now, I can spend for the house and just work on paying the balances down.
Does this sound like a good plan? I'm gardening for at least the next 2 years, until my inquiries falls off. Just saw that I have 30+ on my EQ. Lol! But I have the cards I want for now, so the itch is gone. Just going to work on CLIs.
I've also read that "account closed by consumer" looks better than "account closed by credit grantor." Any truth to this? Or is it just pride? A part of me just wants to get rid of the store cards now. I want to clean my siggy!
I still have a lot more to buy, so I'm going to have plenty of use with the rewards cards. I will probably leave some balances just because I honestly don't have a lot of money to pay in full for furniture and household stuff. I have no plans in the near future to apply for any credit, so I feel that for now, I can spend for the house and just work on paying the balances down.
Does this sound like a good plan? I'm gardening for at least the next 2 years, until my inquiries falls off. Just saw that I have 30+ on my EQ. Lol! But I have the cards I want for now, so the itch is gone. Just going to work on CLIs.
I've also read that "account closed by consumer" looks better than "account closed by credit grantor." Any truth to this? Or is it just pride? A part of me just wants to get rid of the store cards now. I want to clean my siggy!
No particular reason. Some store cards have some advantages that outweigh any credit card's rewards such as that target card. I lot of people get the store cards from promo offer, such as 0% rates, at time of purchase.
Closed by creditor or closed by consumer makes NO DIFFERENCE to credit score. It is not a negative either way. However, you could argue that it looks better for consumer to close under human review, but I don't think so. Lots of neutral reasons cards get closed by card issuers such as non use.
Personally, I would keep any store cards I had that have no fees. I took the inquiry to get them so might as well get as much mileage out of card as possible. The available balance counts towards utilization calculations. And AAoA continues to build while I have card. If they start slashing limits on card, I might cancel as it likely will soon be canceled and I personally like a card showing high limits even closed, but I don't have any reason to think it makes any difference.
LIMITS IN CARD DESCRIPTIONS
Seeing closed by creditor really can make a lender wonder why it was closed, and be suspicious. But honestly I wouldn't say it noticeably effects your chances.
It really depends on the usefulness of a particular store card. For example, my GAP card offers frequent coupons that makes it worthwhile to keep. But my JCrew card hardly ever has any bonus perks that I find worth it so I really don't have a need for that card. I haven't closed it since I can't be bothered with it and there's no cost to keep it open at the moment.
@Startome wrote:Seeing closed by creditor really can make a lender wonder why it was closed, and be suspicious. But honestly I wouldn't say it noticeably effects your chances.
I wouldn't really worry about what the credit report says. I have cards I closed and it was reported incorrectly as closed by lender, so credit reports don't tend to be all that reliable when it comes to who closed what. As mentioned before cards can be closed by the lender for all sorts of neutral reasons. The reality is that the lender will see the payment history on the card and whether or not there were high balances/ late payments and therefore know if there was a problem.
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