topic Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight in Credit Cards

Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:05:11 GMT

Closed since the first of the year:

Paypal Smart Connect

Walmart

Lowes

Sam's Club

Zales

Citibank Best Buy Visa

Citibank Home Depot

TJ Maxx

Amazon Store Card

Kohl's

JC Penney

Lowe's

Feels good not to have to jump from card site to card site, making sure I don't have any fees or payments due!

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:06:18 GMT

Your nick name should be Pizza Jr.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:13:54 GMT

Really? Who is Pizza Sr? LOL

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

CH-7-Mission-Accomplished — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:18:50 GMT

You can be Lasagne.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

BallBounces — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:20:01 GMT

May we ask what you've left open?

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:26:03 GMT

Haha I like Pizza and Lasagne. Would take both!

I kept the following:

Care Credit (they were good to me when my dog was sick with CLI when I needed it)

Art Van Furniture (not sure why)

Lumber Liquidators (again, not sure why)

Amex ED

Amex Blue

Amex PRG

Cap 1 Quiksilver

Discover (small embarassing limit but the card is pink and cute with a monogram so I like having it in my wallet)

Some random tire accounts that I am too lazy to chase down to close

Target (cause I love me some 5% off)

Neiman Marcus

Victorias's Secret (crazy high limit for some unfathomable reason so I kept it)

That is all I can think of. But so many Synchrony cards had me at like, $300 limits. Lowe's and TJ Maxx had $300 limits. Many of the others were $1K or more, but I didn't use them. Some I tried for CLI, and was turned down. My feeling is, if you don't want my business, I don't want yours. If Lowe's won't give me more than $300 bucks, why bother? PS my 3B scores range from 670 to 718. Not great, not terrible.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

lexandra90 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:34:52 GMT

@wednesdayaddamsd wrote:
Really? Who is Pizza Sr? LOL

a very cool MyFICO memeber named Pizza1 shes lovely and gives good information. You can find some of her boards about her recent card closures shes done to accomidate her evil plan lol

And congrats I will be chopping my 18 cards down to at least 12 as the year goes by. everyday i log into at least 18 sites ridiculous lol

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

BallBounces — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:36:04 GMT

Thanks wed. I always liek to see what people close and what they keep, just for idle curiosity. I think the value of store cards on the whole is VERY low, especially for more mature scores, but there are cases where they are downright useful.

For me, Amazon is a large limit, as well as a 5% cash back earner. No way I would close that. (It's my only store card at this point, and very likely to stay that way for the forseeable future) It is a superb card for me. But I don't think I would ever consider a lumber liquidators card!

Again, thanks for the reply! Your major cards appear to be very solid. Maybe expand in a controlled fashion there?

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:45:11 GMT

and now I'm hungry :/

anyway, congrats!!

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:48:01 GMT

Thank you, Ball. Lumber liquidators gave me a stupid high limit I think that is why I kept it. I had a BK7 back in 2010 and I think I was erroneously trying to build my credit with the store cards which maybe helped, maybe not. But at this point, I am trying to only use cards that have a cash back or miles, etc. Our new rule is that we do not carry a balance on any card so everything is PIF every month. That helps a lot with the anxiety about ever being in a situation that might require a bankruptcy. But also we are getting a teeny bit of cash back or miles on the money we spend anyway on travel or food, etc. Credit means something different to me than it did 10 or 20 years ago. Back then it was about grabbing every new bag or pair of shoes I could. Now it means getting a few dollars a month in rewards, and having that emergency card if we need it, heaven forbid.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:51:05 GMT

Congratulations!

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Kevin86475391 — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 03:46:02 GMT

@BallBounces wrote:
I think the value of store cards on the whole is VERY low, especially for more mature scores, but there are cases where they are downright useful.

That's a good point! I have a lot of great rewards cards and good scores, but one of my favorite cards to this day is still my good old Target Red Card for the 5% discount. I shop at Target a lot so it makes it just as valuable - and even more consistent - than my 5% category spend Discover It and Chase Freedom. It has a much lower limit of course, but I couldn't care less since I PIF as soon as I put anything on it.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 03:49:24 GMT

getting rid of dead weight is good. you basically dumped some synch hahaha. see if you can get a CLI on discover so the limit can be "cuter than the card"

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 22:18:35 GMT

Thanks XTerror....I hope to have a CLI on Discover SOME DAY! They won't give me an extra dollar right now though. The limit is so low I don't even use it and keep it at zero balance. It's too hard to be checking to see when the statement is going to cut etc. on a limit that low, it always looks maxed out. So I don't use it really. Not sure if they would be interested in giving me a CLI at this rate.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 22:39:14 GMT

just use it. who cares if it reports as maxed. utilization has no memory it'll only affect your score temporarily.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

deltatee — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 22:45:04 GMT

Congrats! It feels good to lean out and streamlime. I just closed my Macy's store card today and I think the True Earnings isn't far behind.

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 00:33:15 GMT

Kevin I use the Target Red Card but also have the debit card for 5% as well. I use the credit card occasionally beacause I don't want them to close it, but always pay it within a few days just like you. The debit card does the same thing, but for some reason I don't want to close my Target credit card. LOL

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

wednesdayaddamsd — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 00:34:51 GMT

Xterror you are too funny. I should just use the Discover card but then that is one more payment I have to make. Ugh...If you knew how lazy I am, you would understand. I would take some CLI if they throw it my way tho. Just sayin!

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 00:42:34 GMT

lol understandable. but usage aids in getting CLIs too

Re: Gardening. Closed the dead weight

Kevin86475391 — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 00:47:02 GMT

@wednesdayaddamsd wrote:
Kevin I use the Target Red Card but also have the debit card for 5% as well. I use the credit card occasionally beacause I don't want them to close it, but always pay it within a few days just like you. The debit card does the same thing, but for some reason I don't want to close my Target credit card. LOL

I've heard about but never used the debit card. Is it sort of like a prepaid card? If so I think I'd probably rather stick with the credit card. I feel like I'd spend more if I already had the money committed to Target. Sort of like how I'll often go somewhere I wouldn't otherwise go, or just go sooner/more often, just because I have a gift card.