topic Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card! in Credit Cards

Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Want2BDebtFreeNow — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:45:53 GMT

3 years of "sobriety". The cool part about it is that I don't have any desire to apply for one. Every once in a while I get the itch, but with the current credit market I know it would be a waste of an INQ. Plus I do want to get to the 2 year mark with NO inq period on my credit report. All the ones on there now are from trading veh's, another bad habit that I am trying to break. In July of 2010 I will have had my car for 2 years! yay!

Anybody else care to share their "sobriety" story? :-)

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

pattycake — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:48:07 GMT

Wow - that is what I call SELF-RESTRAINT!!!!

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:12:26 GMT

@Want2BDebtFreeNow wrote:
3 years of "sobriety". The cool part about it is that I don't have any desire to apply for one. Every once in a while I get the itch, but with the current credit market I know it would be a waste of an INQ. Plus I do want to get to the 2 year mark with NO inq period on my credit report. All the ones on there now are from trading veh's, another bad habit that I am trying to break. In July of 2010 I will have had my car for 2 years! yay!

Anybody else care to share their "sobriety" story? :-)

I have not applied for Credit since Feb 2001. That was not even a credit card, but was actually an application to join a Country Club and they wanted to do a credit check.

We are very happy with our CC's (we have just 4) and I have turned down all CLI's offers as we have no need for it.

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Want2BDebtFreeNow — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:20:38 GMT

That is my goal, 7 more years down the road be able to say the last time I got a cc was 10 years ago! by then the only thing that will be on my credit report should be the open credit card accounts as all the other accounts should have dropped off by then (all paid on time) but I have tons and tons of c cc's reporting on my credit report from the days I didnt know any better. I thought the more the better.

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:48:17 GMT

That's a worthy goal. I have 11 TL's reporting on EQ and EX and 10 on TU. All but one are open, and that one was closed by me years ago to avoid an RJ. It feels good to be a master of your own destiny (more or less).

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

pattycake — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:23:43 GMT

I'm more into a good FICO score. But, that may mean laying off and following your lead, OP!!!

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

DI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:42:26 GMT

No more apping for me!! I just checked Credit Karma and my AAoA has gone from 4 years to 2yrs 9mths. But, strangely my credit score with CK increased.

I'm not sure how AAoA works. Can someone confirm that my AAoA will go back up to 4 years after 1 year 3 mths?

Message Edited by DI on 10-08-2009 05:42 AM

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:01:51 GMT

DI wrote:

No more apping for me!! I just checked Credit Karma and my AAoA has gone from 4 years to 2yrs 9mths. But, strangely my credit score with CK increased.

I'm not sure how AAoA works. Can someone confirm that my AAoA will go back up to 4 years after 1 year 3 mths?

As long as you don't have any new accounts appear on your reports, and as long as any old ones don't drop off, your AAoA should go up by one month every month.

Sort of a general aside: don't forget that if and when your next oldest account falls off, you'll still have the same length of history (from the older account remaining), but you might well lose some AAoA. The fewer accounts you have, the more impact on the average age when an older one falls off, or when an entire account is removed. I think lots of people forget that part.

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

DI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:16:22 GMT

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@DI wrote:

No more apping for me!! I just checked Credit Karma and my AAoA has gone from 4 years to 2yrs 9mths. But, strangely my credit score with CK increased.

I'm not sure how AAoA works. Can someone confirm that my AAoA will go back up to 4 years after 1 year 3 mths?

As long as you don't have any new accounts appear on your reports, and as long as any old ones don't drop off, your AAoA should go up by one month every month.

Sort of a general aside: don't forget that if and when your next oldest account falls off, you'll still have the same length of history (from the older account remaining), but you might well lose some AAoA. The fewer accounts you have, the more impact on the average age when an older one falls off, or when an entire account is removed. I think lots of people forget that part.

Ok. I 'm still waiting for the PenFed and GM card to appear. So I guess my AAoA will decrease 2 months for two cards opened the same month, or is it just 1 month?

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:14:34 GMT

@DI wrote:
Ok. I 'm still waiting for the PenFed and GM card to appear. So I guess my AAoA will decrease 2 months for two cards opened the same month, or is it just 1 month?

It's not that simple. It is most likely going to be more than a two month decrease. The two new, yet to show up TL's will be adding two more zeroes to the top part of your fraction and adding 2 two the bottom part. If you know how many open and closed TL's were included in that 2y 9m it can be figured out. (That would be the total number of all open and closed TL's of all types reporting on your CBR.) Hopefully it stays above 2y for you!

(According to my back of the envelope calculation the AAoA of accounts would only go down by 2 m if it is currently based on 31 reporting TL's!)

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

DI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:22:55 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@DI wrote:
Ok. I 'm still waiting for the PenFed and GM card to appear. So I guess my AAoA will decrease 2 months for two cards opened the same month, or is it just 1 month?
It's not that simple. It is most likely going to be more than a two month decrease. The two new, yet to show up TL's will be adding two more zeroes to the top part of your fraction and adding 2 two the bottom part. If you know how many open and closed TL's were included in that 2y 9m it can be figured out. (That would be the total number of all open and closed TL's of all types reporting on your CBR.) Hopefully it stays above 2y for you!

(According to my back of the envelope calculation the AAoA of accounts would only go down by 2 m if it is currently based on 31 reporting TL's!)

I have 32 accounts reporting. My oldest tradeline is 8 years 11 months. When Target updates my account this month it be 9 years old.

Message Edited by DI on 10-08-2009 09:22 AM

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:29:17 GMT

If you have that many TL's reporting it will cost you about 2 m.

(With my portfolio two new account would cost me ten months!)

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

DI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:33:15 GMT

Thanks! So this time next year will I be back near 4 year AAoA? I wonder how this affects my FICO. I won't purchase to find out.

Message Edited by DI on 10-08-2009 09:33 AM

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

armymom — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:38:27 GMT

Prior to opening a Sam's account last month, my last account opened was 10/01. Opening my Sam's account knocked my AAofA from 7 yrs to 6yrs.

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:42:46 GMT

@DI wrote:
Thanks! So this time next year will I be back near 4 year AAoA? I wonder how this affects my FICO. I won't purchase to find out.

Reducing your AAoA from > 4 to < 3 should result in a FICO decrease. UTIL improvement could partially offset this if you carry any balances or have installment accounts.

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

DI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:53:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@DI wrote:
Thanks! So this time next year will I be back near 4 year AAoA? I wonder how this affects my FICO. I won't purchase to find out.
Reducing your AAoA from > 4 to < 3 should result in a FICO decrease. UTIL improvement could partially offset this if you carry any balances or have installment accounts.

I have 2 installment accounts. Student and Car loans

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

bakalao2k — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:06:47 GMT

I haven't applied for a card since 2005, but I have an itchy finger right now.

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

DI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:25:29 GMT

@bakalao2k wrote:
I haven't applied for a card since 2005, but I have an itchy finger right now.

Go for it! An itchy finger means good luck. Some one is waiting to give a new card

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Want2BDebtFreeNow — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 19:16:30 GMT

I fell off the band wagon, I applied for a new car loan in July of this year (got approved for 3.9%) and an Ikea Credit card (which I havent used )

Re: Sept 2006 - Last time I applied for a credit card!

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 19:35:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Want2BDebtFreeNow wrote:
3 years of "sobriety". The cool part about it is that I don't have any desire to apply for one. Every once in a while I get the itch, but with the current credit market I know it would be a waste of an INQ. Plus I do want to get to the 2 year mark with NO inq period on my credit report. All the ones on there now are from trading veh's, another bad habit that I am trying to break. In July of 2010 I will have had my car for 2 years! yay!

Anybody else care to share their "sobriety" story? :-)

I have not applied for Credit since Feb 2001. That was not even a credit card, but was actually an application to join a Country Club and they wanted to do a credit check.

We are very happy with our CC's (we have just 4) and I have turned down all CLI's offers as we have no need for it.

Being as this thread has reappeared, I thought I would comment again. STILL HAVEN'T APPLIED since Feb 2001. This may seem strange to some, but really, there is nothing we need to apply for. We are blessed that we own our home, rental properties , cars, etc so no need to do it. We still have our 4 Credit cards and are very pleased with our Credit limits. We use each of them for about $500 plus per month, which we pay off when I get the bill.

We have not had any adverse reactions to Credit cards since all the changes have happened. The only thing that has changed is BOA actually doubled our CL when they issued our new card (This was not done at our request, they did it themselves).

Still get a slew of offers in the mail, but none that are needed.

I MAY be tempted later this year though, as the wife is looking at a new car. We could pay for it but the Ford dealer keeps telling me he can get us 36 Months at 0% INTEREST, so honestly, the intelligent thing to do would be to finance it under those terms and keep our money earning interest those three years. Guess it will just depend on what is offered at that time.

Best to luck to everyone and I hope you all reach your credit goals.