Firstly, congrats on your extreme amount of success in building your credit! I find myself in a simular situation. My scores are lower than yours but they're much higher than the low 500's I started building with. I found myself taking my new scores for a "test drive" and pointlessly applying for unnecessary cards.
I went from a crappy $300 First premier card to over 26k in total limits. I'm determined to be content with this and cultivate my current lines. I actually want to get rid of the FP cards and capitol one by years end.
Good luck
I went from a crappy $300 First premier card to over 26k in total limits. I'm determined to be content with this and cultivate my current lines. I actually want to get rid of the FP cards and capitol one by years end.
Good luck
”Breathing new life into a dead credit file”
Firstly congrats on the rebuild. Good job, second its tough.. i found i wasnt happy until i got all the credit i wanted, the stores i frequent, and at least one card from every major creditor lol.. if not 2.. i believe some peoples points of happiness are different. Some want just a couple of high limit cards, others want high number of cards that are used frequently. Some want the mythical cards, its basically imo, what you want, set realistic goals, do you want 3 cards with 25k 10 cards with 5k 35 cards with a mixture of credit? Also just think keeping up with them all is a chore, i think i have around 37 accounts i have to tally, thank god for billkeep prism etc.. lol. So i know how hard it is, ive been down the path, tore the path up, ripped every veggie out of every garden. Killed my aaoa, but at this moment in time theres no card i want, i feel no urge ever to pull the trigger, what cards left... lol. Ive actually gotten to the point where id love to close cards. Guess i hit my wall. Good luck and hopefully youll steer clear from my path lol.
Starting Score:567Walmart TU 701, Credit Sesame 722, credit secure 701 credit karma 694Last Score: 689 TU/Walmart CK 645 Goal Score:800 CLUB
This is fairly simply, do nothing.
Your AAOA will go up, you will get auto-CLI's, you will get an even higher FICO score, you will get many offers thrown at you, and most importantly you will get the peace of mind that when you apply for something you are most-likely going to get approved at a higher than average CL with the lowest APR the card carries.
This is why you do nothing. This is how you win.
Must garden until 2/1/2022 to hit my goal AAOA. 
@Anonymous wrote:Hey all - long-time lurker, first-time contributor.
I need some advice on how to get the discipline to not continuously apply for credit cards that I really don't need and just cultivate what I have. Just a bit of backstory:
I used to be really obnoxious about credit. Early on I had a small credit card that I completely abused until it was charged off. Then about five years later I got my first car lease and had a spotty payment record, but didn't actually skip a payment until about three months until the end of the lease and then they repossessed. (My fault entirely.) Then I pretty much didn't have any credit and didn't care for about five years until I turned 30 and decided to try for some again. Needless to say, not many people wanted to extend credit, but I did have one of those First Premier cards (which was just awful, but something) and then a couple of years later, got a very limited Capital One card ($200 CL). I coasted off of that for a few years and then suddenly in 2012, I received an offer from OneStopPlus for a $150 card. I thought I hit the motherload...LOL.
And that was the beginning of my credit redemption. Shortly after that in January of 2013 I was offered a DiscoverIT card (they even came to ME) with a credit limit of $1200 (they were apologetic about the "low rate" and I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice) and then it all broke open in the two years since, culminating in a couple of $10K credit limits and even an American Express approval recently. I don't know what my credit score was when I first started rebuilding, but I would estimate it was in the low 500's and according to my last Discover statement it's now 745.
But here's the problem: I am so excited to have decent credit now, I'm killing myself with credit inquiries. I recently did a hatchet job on most of my cards that were under a $5K limit (2012 me is still amazed at this) in an effort to just use what I have since my credit usage is less than 10% and I pay all of my cards off every month. (I haven't paid an annual fee or interest since 2012) But then I think, "Hmmm... I wonder if I could get..." and then apply for whatever card. So I'm looking for any advice on how anyone who has gone through the same thing "just said no" and was content to putter around in the garden. I'll be getting a car loan in two years and also hopefully will be looking at getting a house around then as well and I don't want my spazziness to affect that. Thanks for any advice!
Thanks for sharing your experience, others i'm sure can both understand and learn from it. You see in this process things never quite go as planned, and sometimes the reflection of how things were in the past give us a sense of urgency because the difficulties we faced and hardships are a memory of what we do not want to ever go thru again. Fast forward to the present you've got a great CS, multiple cards, and a responsible payment pattern but a stack of inquiries and an urge to get more can create a roadblock for your other financial goals. The answer can be found in the garden, bring your thoughts your urges and your challenges......they'll be someone there to support you and give you an honest answer. Bringing these type of questions to the credit card area sometimes brings the opposite response, because they may not understand the full portrait of your financial picture.
~all the best 
@joedtx wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Hey all - long-time lurker, first-time contributor.
I need some advice on how to get the discipline to not continuously apply for credit cards that I really don't need and just cultivate what I have. Just a bit of backstory:
I used to be really obnoxious about credit. Early on I had a small credit card that I completely abused until it was charged off. Then about five years later I got my first car lease and had a spotty payment record, but didn't actually skip a payment until about three months until the end of the lease and then they repossessed. (My fault entirely.) Then I pretty much didn't have any credit and didn't care for about five years until I turned 30 and decided to try for some again. Needless to say, not many people wanted to extend credit, but I did have one of those First Premier cards (which was just awful, but something) and then a couple of years later, got a very limited Capital One card ($200 CL). I coasted off of that for a few years and then suddenly in 2012, I received an offer from OneStopPlus for a $150 card. I thought I hit the motherload...LOL.
And that was the beginning of my credit redemption. Shortly after that in January of 2013 I was offered a DiscoverIT card (they even came to ME) with a credit limit of $1200 (they were apologetic about the "low rate" and I could barely keep the excitement out of my voice) and then it all broke open in the two years since, culminating in a couple of $10K credit limits and even an American Express approval recently. I don't know what my credit score was when I first started rebuilding, but I would estimate it was in the low 500's and according to my last Discover statement it's now 745.
But here's the problem: I am so excited to have decent credit now, I'm killing myself with credit inquiries. I recently did a hatchet job on most of my cards that were under a $5K limit (2012 me is still amazed at this) in an effort to just use what I have since my credit usage is less than 10% and I pay all of my cards off every month. (I haven't paid an annual fee or interest since 2012) But then I think, "Hmmm... I wonder if I could get..." and then apply for whatever card. So I'm looking for any advice on how anyone who has gone through the same thing "just said no" and was content to putter around in the garden. I'll be getting a car loan in two years and also hopefully will be looking at getting a house around then as well and I don't want my spazziness to affect that. Thanks for any advice!
Thanks for sharing your experience, others i'm sure can both understand and learn from it. You see in this process things never quite go as planned, and sometimes the reflection of how things were in the past give us a sense of urgency because the difficulties we faced and hardships are a memory of what we do not want to ever go thru again. Fast forward to the present you've got a great CS, multiple cards, and a responsible payment pattern but a stack of inquiries and an urge to get more can create a roadblock for your other financial goals. The answer can be found in the garden, bring your thoughts your urges and your challenges......they'll be some there to support you and give you an honest answer. Bringing these type of questions to the credit card area sometimes brings the opposite, because they may not understand the full portrait of your financial picture.
~all the best
Wise words. All my Kudos are belong to you. (intentional bad grammar)
