topic Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends in Personal Finance

Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

joesbrat67 — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:03:26 GMT

I've been gardening now for the last 24 months, which seems to be my typical pattern. I'm wondering if others tend to garden for the same length of time, or if shorter/longer than 24 months.

I'm considering coming out of the garden, but wanted to solicit feedback from others, based on their experiences.

FYI - AAoA = 4.5 years, Age of oldest = 14.5 years

All 3 scores are in the 800's range

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:21:53 GMT

I wouldn't think twice about coming out of the garden if I were you and there was a card I wanted

For myself, I really haven't apped or acquired much since getting my rebuild underway. Not tanking my AAOA and keeping my inquiries down does stay on my mind, but I haven't really wanted anything that I couldn't apply for due to these concerns.

My youngest CC is 1 year old and more recently than that, I only have two inquiries from nearly buying a new car last Fall. I honestly think I just wanted to see what I could get approved for, and I got 3-4% approvals on a $25k car, so I was happy with that. I came to my senses and fixed up my paid off car instead.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:24:27 GMT

A common choice is 13 months. That enables all inquiries to fall of FICO's radar (they appear on one's reports but are not scored by FICO). It also causes one's Age of Youngest Account to become > 12 months, which gives many people a significant score boost.

It's also virtually certain, based on how FICO describes its algorithm, that FICO tags certain accounts as new. (I.e. an account is considered "new" or it is not.) A reasonable guess by many people is that FICO uses 12 months as the cutoff. (I.e. an account opened < 12 months ago is "new.") Note that this is just a reasonable guess: the non-FICO models used by the insurance industry use 24 months as the definition for "new." According to what FICO has published, its models look partly at "how many" new accounts a person has. Another reasonable guess is that it does that as a ratio, e.g. Total Number of New Accounts / Total number of Accounts. (The insurance models use the ratio # of New Accounts / # of Open Accounts, and thus the percentage can exceed 100%.)

Anyway, all that is by way of saying that gardening for 12 months has a side benefit there too -- it probably causes FICO to consider that 0% of your accounts are new.

In your specific case, your scores are so extremely high that you could forget about gardening altogether -- unless a home purchases might be on the horizon. Forgetting about gardening has some nice advantages, in that it enables you to grab a new card every 3-9 months, choosing them based on which cards have the best promotions going on.

The gardening-spree approach makes bonus chasing much harder.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

pinkandgrey — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 16:38:41 GMT

Dang 2 years of gardening. That’s great. I think a lot of us have good intentions but don’t last more than 6 months....

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

joesbrat67 — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 18:50:17 GMT

I'm usually very analytical when comes to deciding which credit card to get, specifically ones that benefit my spending habits/trends. That being said, I have 2-3 cards in mind for possible app'ing. My last two 24-month HPs fell off about a week ago, and other than an HP for auto financing back in December 2018, there's nothing else on my file and no major house financing in the near future.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

calyx — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:24:07 GMT

@pinkandgrey wrote:
Dang 2 years of gardening. That’s great. I think a lot of us have good intentions but don’t last more than 6 months....

Right? I think I made it three months last time.

Right now I'm aiming for 6. I will reevaluate at that time.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

800FICOGoal — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 00:05:10 GMT

@joesbrat67 wrote:
I've been gardening now for the last 24 months, which seems to be my typical pattern. I'm wondering if others tend to garden for the same length of time, or if shorter/longer than 24 months.

I'm considering coming out of the garden, but wanted to solicit feedback from others, based on their experiences.

I'm nearly 50% into a 24 month gardening period in order to erase inquiries, age accounts and hit some thresholds. Once that period is up, I will tend to garden for 13 months with a few 6 month garden sessions mixed in.

@pinkandgrey wrote:
Dang 2 years of gardening. That’s great. I think a lot of us have good intentions but don’t last more than 6 months....

I find gardening quite easy. For me, the temptation to app has long passed.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 02:09:28 GMT

Gardening periods are all what works for the individual based on where they're at in their [credit] life and what their goals are.

For bonus-chasers, gardening isn't expected much at all for example.

For someone just starting out in the credit world or relatively new to it anyway, gardening can't really be expected.

For someone like me that's got a well established profile and is happy with all of my credit products, I can/will garden almost indefinitely. I'm at about 2 years now and have no intention of applying for another credit product for about another 4 years when I'll be looking for another mortgage. So, I'll be at ~6 years of gardening at that time. After that, who knows... but gardening when you're in my place is quite easy.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 16:50:01 GMT

@pinkandgrey wrote:
Dang 2 years of gardening. That’s great. I think a lot of us have good intentions but don’t last more than 6 months....

I've never been a very good gardener, whether it be plant or CC based. lol So 24 months isn't a reality for me, my longest stretch was just over 12 months. Spent too long in rebuild phase, and just started aquiring prime credit products a few years back. By 2020 I hope to have all those older subprime cards closed. Trying to spread them out, as I've heard closing too many accounts close together looks bad.

In addition to those, I have a couple recent CCs I want to close due to non use/wrong product. And replace them with something else.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Gmood1 — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 19:29:57 GMT

I garden only by chance there's nothing I'm trying to acquire. If that's the case. I may go 3 or 4 months.
That's about as long as I've gardened in the last 4 years. 😂
Do what works for you.
My approval rating is still well over 95%.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 21:05:31 GMT

I need to start gardening. I recently went on an application spree: like 5 declines in a row.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Five6Two — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 22:02:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I need to start gardening. I recently went on an application spree: like 5 declines in a row.

The credit world is trying to tell you something here with 5 declines in a row...

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 22:31:57 GMT

@Five6Two wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I need to start gardening. I recently went on an application spree: like 5 declines in a row.
The credit world is trying to tell you something here with 5 declines in a row...

The thing is that I got recently approved for two cards, so I thought I could get away with getting one or two more . So applied to pretty much everything under the sun

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

nax — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 01:41:36 GMT

I kept my hands in the dirt for 24 months and just recently came out to give Disco and City another shot and ended up with secured cards for both. Now sticking my hands back in for another 2 years and I should be in GREAT shape by then! 2 Years seems good to me, age off some lates and all the HPs!

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

tcbofade — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 02:20:20 GMT

Hmmm. Not sure what average is. I do, however, tend to garden with a goal in mind and a set date. Currently, I'm nearly to 90 days (Silver Spade) and intend to reach the six month mark at the end of July.

We're still paying off debt, but are only carrying balances on zero percent cards (and two 1.9% cards...)

I have reached the one year mark exactly once. DW is spending 2019 in the garden in preperation for a possible mortgage refi in 2020.

...and we've got Moderators around here that can't garden for 30 minutes.

Everyone is different.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

Revelate — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 06:04:46 GMT

Meh my average gardening time is well over a year.

That said been a little loose over the past six months because it doesn’t really matter currently to me though I have no plans for applying for anything more unless I still can’t F’n optimize mortgage scores with 2 installment loans open even with 17 revolvers open too. Much fail this quest.

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

CreditInspired — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 14:19:45 GMT

@pinkandgrey wrote:
Dang 2 years of gardening. That’s great. I think a lot of us have good intentions but don’t last more than 6 months....

Agree with this 10-fold. The first time I made it to 3 months; the second time to 6 months. But in December, I set a lofty goal; and by golly, this time I'm going to stay in the garden for 24 months! I have more than enough credit--and thank goodness too, because I don't have the itch to apply. So, this should be an easy stint. Well hopefully anyway--20 months to go

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

CreditInspired — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 14:22:28 GMT

@800FICOGoal wrote:
@joesbrat67 wrote:
I've been gardening now for the last 24 months, which seems to be my typical pattern. I'm wondering if others tend to garden for the same length of time, or if shorter/longer than 24 months.

I'm considering coming out of the garden, but wanted to solicit feedback from others, based on their experiences.
I'm nearly 50% into a 24 month gardening period in order to erase inquiries, age accounts and hit some thresholds. Once that period is up, I will tend to garden for 13 months with a few 6 month garden sessions mixed in.

@pinkandgrey wrote:
Dang 2 years of gardening. That’s great. I think a lot of us have good intentions but don’t last more than 6 months....
I find gardening quite easy. For me, the temptation to app has long passed.

Kudos @800FICOGoal

Re: Average Gardening Time - Current Trends

CreditInspired — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 14:28:25 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I need to start gardening. I recently went on an application spree: like 5 declines in a row.

Oh my!