topic Do I have too many credit cards for my age? in Credit Cards

Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:08:39 GMT

I currently have a Capital one credit card with a $300 limit. I just applied for a Wal-mart credit card and was approved for a $1000 limit. I'm only 22 years old is having two credits cards bad for a person my age? BTW, i"m always paying my Capital one card before the due date. MY TU Score is 651. I don't plany on applying for any more credict cards in 2013. I'm trying to build my credit.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:13:11 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I currently have a Capital one credit card with a $300 limit. I just applied for a Wal-mart credit card and was approved for a $1000 limit. I'm only 22 years old is having two credits cards bad for a person my age? BTW, i"m always paying my Capital one card before the due date. MY TU Score is 651. I don't plany on applying for any more credict cards in 2013. I'm trying to build my credit.

No, the standard rule is one card for each year your age is over 17 (18 in CA, 16 in NV) so you are behind.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:15:49 GMT

Or, more helpfully, each person's needs/situation is different. Certainly no harm in having multiple cards if you can handle them responsibly (as it seems you are).

You can either get more cards for various reasons (different types of rewards, relationship with card issuers) or get CLIs on existing cards, or some combination of both.

No hard and fast age related rules, except no personal credit card under 18 in most places.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

ilovelisa — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:20:28 GMT

I'm 19 and I have 11 cards.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

jsickz32 — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:23:58 GMT

21 and look at my sig

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:35:07 GMT

And of course that doesn't mean that OP has to start getting lots of cards. Ilovelisa is (self-described) addicted to apping (and as she/he is 19, we don't know whether this will lead to great or bad credit in say 5 years as life goes on!) , people's income, financial maturity, maturity in general, risk aversion etc are all different.

Having "enough" credit is good, having too little makes things hard, and, by definition, "too much" gets you into trouble either by overextending or trashing your credit scores so that when you really want a mortgage/car loan etc, you get bad rates. Unfortunately, enough has to be defined by you!

But, 2 cards, with a CL of $1300 certainly isn't too much. Are you graduating soon? Out in the world, you will probably want a little more than that to keep expenses from using too much of your CL.

I'm 317, and still think of credit cards as new fangled stuff that's not going anywhere.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:38:53 GMT

Definitely not.

I am 21 with 11 cards. It would be 13 but I closed two Cap1 cards a while back.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

ilovelisa — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:45:24 GMT

Your just have to determine your own maturity level with handling cards. In 2 years of having many cards, and quite a bit of avaliable credit, I have never once carried a balance on any card. I do spend alot, but I trust myself to never spend what I don't have in my savings account.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

webhopper — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:55:37 GMT

For your situation 2 is plenty to handle Don't get caught up in approval highs; as a dozen low limit cards will eventually need to be pruned back for sanity sake.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 06:24:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
...
No, the standard rule is one card for each year your age is over 17 (18 in CA, 16 in NV) so you are behind.

Who made that rule the standard?

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 06:31:33 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I currently have a Capital one credit card with a $300 limit. I just applied for a Wal-mart credit card and was approved for a $1000 limit. I'm only 22 years old is having two credits cards bad for a person my age? BTW, i"m always paying my Capital one card before the due date. MY TU Score is 651. I don't plany on applying for any more credict cards in 2013. I'm trying to build my credit.
No, the standard rule is one card for each year your age is over 17 (18 in CA, 16 in NV) so you are behind.

LOL!

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 10:08:13 GMT

Nope, I'm 20 and if it wasn't for my signature, I woulda lost count

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:07:04 GMT

But, 2 cards, with a CL of $1300 certainly isn't too much. Are you graduating soon? Out in the world, you will probably want a little more than that to keep expenses from using too much of your CL.

Yes, I'm graduating in June of 2013. Currently with my capital one I use a $100 or less each month.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

kevinjjc — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:34:37 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Nope, I'm 20 and if it wasn't for my signature, I woulda lost count

TIP: Credit Karma gives you a good visual presentation of all your credit cards: https://www.creditkarma.com/accounts/creditcards

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:41:31 GMT

@kevinjjc wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Nope, I'm 20 and if it wasn't for my signature, I woulda lost count
TIP: Credit Karma gives you a good visual presentation of all your credit cards: https://www.creditkarma.com/accounts/creditcards

Oh yes! Thanks, I use it daily but I have AU accounts that also appear there so they get mixed up sometimes. I edited the names of the cards to know which ones are mines and it works beautifully; however, I find that the list in my siggy is a simpler way to follow/update any changes on my accounts.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

bichonmom — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:54:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I currently have a Capital one credit card with a $300 limit. I just applied for a Wal-mart credit card and was approved for a $1000 limit. I'm only 22 years old is having two credits cards bad for a person my age? BTW, i"m always paying my Capital one card before the due date. MY TU Score is 651. I don't plany on applying for any more credict cards in 2013. I'm trying to build my credit.

No, you don't have too many, nor too few. People on this forum tend to have a lot of CCs. That doesn't mean you should. Generally speaking, for building good credit, you only need one or two bankcards - e.g. Visa, mc. Having 2 trade lines reporting is enough to build good credit, and you have 2.

That said, unfortunately cap one is notorious for not giving CLIs. So you might want to look at some local credit unions to build a relationship with. Personally, I think it's a good idea to have a visa and mc, just to have both networks covered. At some point, you might also want to look at Amex, because all future Amex will be backdated to your first one.

But you shouldn't feel pressured to get more credit than you can manage. I have a few cards that I'm not using because it is a challenge to keep on top of all of them and be sure that a due date doesn't slip thru the cracks. If you learn what to do now and manage your credit well, you'll avoid many of the mistakes and pitfalls people on this forum (including myself!) have made.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Voodard — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 14:03:37 GMT

@bs6054: You're 317? That's a random age.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 14:11:10 GMT

I have too many at 7.

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 16:29:25 GMT

@Voodard wrote:
@Anonymous: You're 317? That's a random age.

Hardly random! Last year I was 316, and if I am spared, next year I will be 318. Doesn't your age age like that?

Re: Do I have too many credit cards for my age?

andre181 — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 17:04:58 GMT

23 and look at my sig.