Too many store cards... what to do?

[dcw0405]

Hi Everyone,

I just pulled my FICO scores and they are in the very low 600s.  I'm really needing to rebuild my credit over the next two years because I want to buy a house.  In 2009-2011, I was NOT financially responsible and opened a bunch of store cards and had several late payments, which resulted in a very low credit score.  For the past year I've been doing GREAT making the payments on time.  I have 5 store cards that have a zero balance but are showing as opened (even though I thought one of them was permanantly closed and hasn't reported since 2007).  I have 5 other store cards that I'll be paying off within the next two months.  So I have a total of 10 store cards that are showing opened on my credit report, all of which will be a zero balance by March 1st.  My question is, should I close any of these accounts or just leave them open with a zero balance?  Also, when I pulled my credit reports from the three reporting agencies, it shows some of my cards haven't reported anything since 2011 (when my last payment was made) but these accounts are indeed still open for me to use.  Should I be utilizing these to make a small purchase and pay it off in full just so that it shows more recent history of on-time payments or should I just leave them alone?  I'm not entirely sure how these affect my credit score but I'm sure glad I've learned a lot in the last couple years and am really focusing on getting this cleared up.  Hard lesson learned!!  Thanks to everyone for any advice!!

[user5387]

Existing store cards don't intrinsically drag down your scores, assuming that they've got $0 balances reporting.

However, if you let a bunch of them report balances, then you'll take a utilization hit.

Also, they may be hard to manage, and there is an increased risk of late payments, fraud issues, and so on.

You might consider pruning out some of them.

[coldnmn]

Even closed they will report as a positive TL if in good standing when closed.

[BluJay]

Pull your credit report from annualcreditreport.com. I'm not positive but I think your accounts will show activation dates. Make sure to keep the oldest store card open, especially if it's your oldest account, and don't close any accounts. Make purchases on the accounts you want to keep open every six months to ensure the accounts are left in good standing. The other unused accounts will eventually close out, because financially it makes sense for a creditor to close a card if there can be money made from interest on another account. It won't help to charge the unwanted unused store cards unless a balance is shown, so just leaving them hang around wont hurt your score for now.

Edit: modified URL, S10 is correct --Rev

[blondy250]

Just let them close on there own (SD), and I agree with the previous to keep the oldest 1or 2 open. If your a couple years away from a morgage app, I would open a couple of mainstream card (chase, citi, amex) and get a good payment history going.

[StartingOver10]

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@BluJay wrote:

Pull your credit report from freeannualcreditreport.com. I'm not positive but I think your accounts will show activation dates. Make sure to keep the oldest store card open, especially if it's your oldest account, and don't close any accounts. Make purchases on the accounts you want to keep open every six months to ensure the accounts are left in good standing. The other unused accounts will eventually close out, because financially it makes sense for a creditor to close a card if there can be money made from interest on another account. It won't help to charge the unwanted unused store cards unless a balance is shown, so just leaving them hang around wont hurt your score for now.

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^^^wrong website above -

Go to www.annualcreditreport.com  this is the only website that truly provides free reports. The other website mentioned is an inactive site. The rest of the advice is spot on.