topic Re: Help with our credit cards in Credit Cards

Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:15:44 GMT

Hey all, me and my wife are discussing getting rid of a few credit cards. Some back story here is that i used to have horrible credit, i still have several baddies on my report all of low (sub $500) balances from a few years ago when i was unemployed. My wife has no negatives and 3 years of perfect payment history, i basically manage her credit cards and handle everything financial. I learned a lot with my credit screwup and am not doing the same for hers.

Now the reason for this post is that we have a bunch of cards, and we aren't sure which ones to cancel or how to choose which ones to cancel. most of them we are authorized user on each others with the exception of our recent cards. Our first premier cards are the oldest for each of our credit profiles so i dont know if cancelling them would be good or not.

The following list is not in any specific order besides pulling them out of our credit card "bin" and all cards have a $0 balance unless states

My Credit One. - $850 limit
Her Credit One. - $750 limit
Her 2nd Credit One. - $800 limit
Her capital one platinum. - $500 limit
Her capital one GM rewards - $500 limit
My capital one quicksilver. - $1000 limit $581 balance
Synchrony summit racing. - $2500 limit
Her Surge MasterCard. - $500 limit
Synchrony walmart Visa. - $3000 limit
Synchrony Lowes store. - $2,445 limit
My first premier. - $400 limit
My first premier 2nd card. - $700 limit
Her first premier. - $500 limit
Her first premier 2nd card. - $700 limit
My indigo card. -$300 limit
Her indigo card. -$300 limit
Merrick bank. -$550 limit
Citi Best buy visa card. -$2500 limit
American Express everyday. -$1000 limit
Her Discover It. -$2500 limit
My discover It chrome. -$6000. $5200 balance. I did a balance transfer and consolidated all our credit card debt onto my discover it card to take advantage of the 0% intro apr. Should be paid off in 5 to 6 months

The best buy visa, American express, and discover cards are less than a month old and is really the start of our goal in reaching prime lenders.

Her fico is 723 and mine is 653 which is confusing as to why discover gave me a $6000 limit and her only a $2500 limit.

Anyways im looking forward to any advice if you need any info please ask. Thanks!

Re: Help with our credit cards

pipeguy — Thu, 31 May 2018 12:56:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hey all, me and my wife are discussing getting rid of a few credit cards. Some back story here is that i used to have horrible credit, i still have several baddies on my report all of low (sub $500) balances from a few years ago when i was unemployed. My wife has no negatives and 3 years of perfect payment history, i basically manage her credit cards and handle everything financial. I learned a lot with my credit screwup and am not doing the same for hers.

Now the reason for this post is that we have a bunch of cards, and we aren't sure which ones to cancel or how to choose which ones to cancel. most of them we are authorized user on each others with the exception of our recent cards. Our first premier cards are the oldest for each of our credit profiles so i dont know if cancelling them would be good or not.

The following list is not in any specific order besides pulling them out of our credit card "bin" and all cards have a $0 balance unless states

~~My Credit One. - $850 limit~~
~~Her Credit One. - $750 limit~~
~~Her 2nd Credit One. - $800 limit~~
Her capital one platinum. - $500 limit
Her capital one GM rewards - $500 limit
My capital one quicksilver. - $1000 limit $581 balance
Synchrony summit racing. - $2500 limit
~~Her Surge MasterCard. - $500 limit~~
Synchrony walmart Visa. - $3000 limit
Synchrony Lowes store. - $2,445 limit
~~My first premier. - $400 limit~~
~~My first premier 2nd card. - $700 limit~~
~~Her first premier. - $500 limit~~
~~Her first premier 2nd card. - $700 limit~~
~~My indigo card. -$300 limit~~
~~Her indigo card. -$300 limit~~
~~Merrick bank. -$550 limit~~ (I'd kill this one too, but some posters have reported its not bad for a sub-prime)
Citi Best buy visa card. -$2500 limit
American Express everyday. -$1000 limit
Her Discover It. -$2500 limit
My discover It chrome. -$6000. $5200 balance. I did a balance transfer and consolidated all our credit card debt onto my discover it card to take advantage of the 0% intro apr. Should be paid off in 5 to 6 months

The best buy visa, American express, and discover cards are less than a month old and is really the start of our goal in reaching prime lenders.
Her fico is 723 and mine is 653 which is confusing as to why discover gave me a $6000 limit and her only a $2500 limit.
Anyways im looking forward to any advice if you need any info please ask. Thanks!

I've marked all the subprime cards that I would kill, both of you have a lot of "low limit cards", most won't grow and none of them will become prime. You didn't mention it, but most starter sub-prime cards charge an annual fee, you don't need that either. Just remember it's not quantity it is quality which should be your goal - it takes time and it looks like you are well on your way rebuilding your credit (lesson learned the hard way).

If your wife's true Fico score is 723 she should be able to acquire prime cards from various prime lenders - you can continue to be an AU on those accounts and in addition, your discover cards will grow over time, as will the AmEx. Just space our your applications to one or two a year each and it won't take too long.

Re: Help with our credit cards

Meanmchine — Wed, 30 May 2018 22:12:41 GMT

Cancel all cards with annual fees

Keep the rest

Good luck u2

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Wed, 30 May 2018 22:20:47 GMT

Thank you. Both of our 1st premier cards (not the second cards) are the oldest cards on our profiles do you think they will hurt our scores by removing them? Anything after those i have no concern about.

Thanks again

Re: Help with our credit cards

pipeguy — Wed, 30 May 2018 22:24:05 GMT

Closing a card, any card has zero effect on your AAoA. All open and closed accounts will stay on your reports 7 to 10 years and during that period they will be used for calculating your scores.

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Wed, 30 May 2018 22:37:53 GMT

Awesome! Did not know that. Appreciate the help!

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2018 04:47:23 GMT

I'm curious why a person would have so many "rebuilder" cards, with such high maintanence fees? Don't you only need two cards to successfully rebuild?

I barely liked the idea of having one First Premier Card, let alone two. Plus two more with another sub-prime card, not to mention a third.

Heck the fees alone could have put you in the poor house! lol

I always though you only needed two, but at least one card to do what's needed. And it will eventually lead you to other non predator Lenders?

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2018 08:35:33 GMT

That's entirely possible. My thought was having a bunch of current accounts would help, especially with utilization (we were only getting small limits so we got more cards to compensate) I ended up getting a great job that i make real good money at, and had no problem with the maintenance fees. Our goal was just to get into prime cards and considering most of our cards started out at $300 limits i don't think we are doing too bad.

We've reached our goal of prime cards so Its time to cull the herd which is why i made this post. Should be all uphill from here.

Also these are split between me and my wife, some are mine and some are hers so though it looks like a lot of cards its split between the 2 of us

Re: Help with our credit cards

AverageJoesCredit — Thu, 31 May 2018 12:15:52 GMT

Not everyone realizes you only need 3 cards. I'd definitely as the subprime cards but if those extra limits are helping with utilization, do it one or two at a time. Once you have your Disco paid down more take off the gloves lol.

Dont forget as you pay down the Disco to ask for sp cli, Disco seems to like those who carrying a balance . I wouldnt be surprised if you can get that Disco to 10k bt end of year

Re: Help with our credit cards

HeavenOhio — Thu, 31 May 2018 12:33:21 GMT

Three cards are desirable, but if losing crummy cards causes one to dip below three for a while, I'd lose the cards.

The same thing would go for utilization. I'd either take the scoring ding for higher utilization or adjust my balances accordingly.

Of course, if one is in the position to add a card before beginning the closing spree, that's cool too. Because we don't know the opening dates on the OP's current cards, we can't advise on whether that's a good idea or not.

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2018 13:10:26 GMT

@AverageJoesCreditNot everyone realizes you only need 3 cards.

I agree that having a ton of cards (like the OP) verses just 3 doesn't accomplish anything with respect to FICO scoring and/or profile strength. Any time I do read about 3 cards being recommended, though, I do chime in with my story of how I went ~15 years with only one CC and during that time my scores were in the 790-800 range for the majority of that time period. I provide that example as well to those that feel they need a ton of cards to 'build" credit or obtain a top-tier score.

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2018 18:40:10 GMT

Yea I like to mention that I was able to reach a 755 score with just my first credit card by itself. Didn't even have a score before Discover gave me a shot. So cut as many of those cards as you want and if you are concerned about your utilization and have the resources (including time) just pay the cards you want to keep down every week or two until your limits start growing and/or you get a couple new cards you can actually take advatage of. I like to make multiple payments a month on each of my cards just to help me keep better track of my budget.

Good luck to ya both and get rid of those cards with fees first. Earning rewards doesn't matter if they're eaten away by fees.

Re: Help with our credit cards

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 07:52:34 GMT

Many people with just 1 revolving credit line are able to debut with a FICO score in the low-mid 700's (at 6 months) and at the 1 year mark are above the 750 mark. By 2 years of credit history if they have another couple of accounts (say a couple of student loans) to thicken their file a little an 800 score is not out of the question. So yes, it can absolutely be accomplished with only 1 credit card.