Anyone currently focused on closing cards?

[Anonymous]

I do close some out for the sake of simplicity and to prevent fraud.  The older I get the simpler I want everything. The important thing is to keep at least a few cards open to build a long history.  I definitely would never keep an unused card with an annual fee.  First, it would cost me unnecessary money, second, I may forget about the annual fee.  Capital One was reimbursing me every year for their annual fee on my rebuilder Platinum --   got tired of calling in after a few years.  It was my oldest card, didn't care.  Closing it out took one small worry away.

It's a good idea to tie all your open accounts to one interface so you can keep track of things in case of fraud (I use personal capital).  The worst thing that could happen is you get a fraudulent charge somewhere and are unaware of it.  

[Anonymous]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Is this the logging club?

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Heh. It took me a minute to get that one. No one is encouraging deforestation of their credit profiles.

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Ok you got a point, how about the Culling Club?

[Anonymous]

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

They still count toward your AAoA even after you close them.  By the time they fall off the AAoA calculation, you don't need them anyway.  I closed a 43 year old card and a 25 year old card last year, and they're still counting toward AAoA.

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But only for ten years, so in nine years you're going to lose 68 years worth of time contributing to your AAoA. While that isn't going to be a big deal for some people that have thoroughly established AAoA, it will definitely be a big impact to those that don't. Basically, if I decided to go cash-only right now and closed all of my CC accounts, by the time I was 50 my AAoA would fall through the floor to nothing. I'll probably try to keep the majority of them open until I'm retired to avoid this ever being even a remote concern in my life.

As for the 'simplicity' and fraud concerns, it only takes a few minutes for me to click through my accounts and I refresh Mint daily so there's not much of an issue of me worrying about undetected fraud slipping through. Besides, if I had five CC accounts and closed four in fear of fraud, if the one single account I had remaining was affected then I would have access to zero lines of revolving credit. I could have an account affected today and when I call the issuer to freeze it it won't affect me and my daily credit needs.

To each their own, I just don't see why some people act like managing more than a couple of cards is so difficult. But by all means, members that have too many to manage should definitely shut them down until they can get back in control. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

They still count toward your AAoA even after you close them.  By the time they fall off the AAoA calculation, you don't need them anyway.  I closed a 43 year old card and a 25 year old card last year, and they're still counting toward AAoA.

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But only for ten years, so in nine years you're going to lose 68 years worth of time contributing to your AAoA.

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Someone with  43 years of credit history is most likely not going to care in 10 more years what their credit rating is.  They have probably already fulfilled all the credit needs they have in life.  There is a lot to be said for financial simplicity.  Finances are vastly more important than worrying about a bunch of credit cards.  Time is the most valuable thing in life, and having to monitor less has real tangible value.   When you are 70 years old you probably don't want to be scouring Mint making sure there is no fraud going on.  By that time you probably want to have one payment method.

 @dyn085 wrote:

"As for the 'simplicity' and fraud concerns, it only takes a few minutes for me to click through my accounts and I refresh Mint daily so there's not much of an issue of me worrying about undetected fraud slipping through."

Yes, that's why I suggested tying them into one interface.  Mint works fine.  I prefer Personal Capital.  Still, I won't want to be monitoring either when I get older.  I want to relax and sip Mai Tais on a tropical beach not worrying about such frivilous things.  I'll have my amex platinum and close everything else out.  By the way, my wife and I churn ~12-16 new cards a year, so my advice comes from some experience having multiple credit cards.

[Schwartzinator]

I started my purge around this time last year with 11 open cards. I just closed my AmEx Platinum last week, and it feels nice only having to manage 3 lines!

[Anonymous]

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@Schwartzinator wrote:
I started my purge around this time last year with 11 open cards. I just closed my AmEx Platinum last week, and it feels nice only having to manage 3 lines!

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I see where you're coming from. I have about four AMEX lines, plus numerous other cards right now, but it's become difficult to choose which cards I want to keep. 

For example:

• My new BBP (2x Delta, 1.5 Jet Blue, or 4 HH points per dollar spent). 15 month intro period. 
• Delta Gold (used for free bags and inflight purchase savings). 
• BCE (I will/could/should get rid of this)
• Green (downgraded from PRG when I was approved for BBP).

• Citi TY Premier (will product change to Prestige in May or June if avaliable). 
• Citi AT&T Access (will product change to Access More, or if not available, close card completely). 

• NFCU AMEX (was at one point going to be my daily driver since it's 3/3/2 on my main categories).
• USAA Limitless (will never get rid of this card unless USAA themselves pulls it from my cold hands). 
• NFCU Cash Rewards (highest limit at $10,000).
• Bank of America Cash Rewards (won't get rid of this either to preserve Bank Amerideals and BoA benefits). 
• DiscoverIt 5% (might get rid of these for Freedom in the long-term future). 
• Empower FCU MasterCard (won't get rid of this because I have the credit union solely for this card and its 11.74 APR). 

[Np1791]

I’m actually closing down some of my cards. At one point I had 22 credit cards I believe. Now I’m down to 5 credit cards and pretty soon I’ll be down to 3.

[AverageJoesCredit]

Easiest way to cut back ...instead of using your Credit Cards.. just use CARD

[UpperNwGuy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

They still count toward your AAoA even after you close them.  By the time they fall off the AAoA calculation, you don't need them anyway.  I closed a 43 year old card and a 25 year old card last year, and they're still counting toward AAoA.

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But only for ten years, so in nine years you're going to lose 68 years worth of time contributing to your AAoA. While that isn't going to be a big deal for some people that have thoroughly established AAoA, it will definitely be a big impact to those that don't. Basically, if I decided to go cash-only right now and closed all of my CC accounts, by the time I was 50 my AAoA would fall through the floor to nothing. I'll probably try to keep the majority of them open until I'm retired to avoid this ever being even a remote concern in my life.

As for the 'simplicity' and fraud concerns, it only takes a few minutes for me to click through my accounts and I refresh Mint daily so there's not much of an issue of me worrying about undetected fraud slipping through. Besides, if I had five CC accounts and closed four in fear of fraud, if the one single account I had remaining was affected then I would have access to zero lines of revolving credit. I could have an account affected today and when I call the issuer to freeze it it won't affect me and my daily credit needs.

To each their own, I just don't see why some people act like managing more than a couple of cards is so difficult. But by all means, members that have too many to manage should definitely shut them down until they can get back in control. 

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A few thoughts:

-- You only need 9 years of AAoA to achieve an 850 FICO score, so dropping 68 years of credit history makes no difference if I don't drop any of my other seven cards over the next 9 years.  This has nothing to do with a cardholder's age.  A 30 year old can make it work.  It will not be "a big impact" to anyone, because in 9 years they can have a thoroughly established AAoA.

-- I never mentioned a desire for simplicity.  Why do you imply that I did?

-- I never mentioned fraud as a concern.  Why do you imply that I did?

-- I never said it was difficult to manage my cards.  Why do you imply that I did?

[UpperNwGuy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

They still count toward your AAoA even after you close them.  By the time they fall off the AAoA calculation, you don't need them anyway.  I closed a 43 year old card and a 25 year old card last year, and they're still counting toward AAoA.

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But only for ten years, so in nine years you're going to lose 68 years worth of time contributing to your AAoA.

---

Someone with  43 years of credit history is most likely not going to care in 10 more years what their credit rating is.  They have probably already fulfilled all the credit needs they have in life.  There is a lot to be said for financial simplicity.  Finances are vastly more important than worrying about a bunch of credit cards.  Time is the most valuable thing in life, and having to monitor less has real tangible value.   When you are 70 years old you probably don't want to be scouring Mint making sure there is no fraud going on.  By that time you probably want to have one payment method.

 @dyn085 wrote:

"As for the 'simplicity' and fraud concerns, it only takes a few minutes for me to click through my accounts and I refresh Mint daily so there's not much of an issue of me worrying about undetected fraud slipping through."

Yes, that's why I suggested tying them into one interface.  Mint works fine.  I prefer Personal Capital.  Still, I won't want to be monitoring either when I get older.  I want to relax and sip Mai Tais on a tropical beach not worrying about such frivilous things.  I'll have my amex platinum and close everything else out.  By the way, my wife and I churn ~12-16 new cards a year, so my advice comes from some experience having multiple credit cards.

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I find your comments to be insulting.  You imply that I am some feeble old man who can't be bothered tracking his credit cards.  You don't know me, and you are making one heckuva a lot of bad assumptions.

-- I am not in my 70s but my 60s.

-- It's only been five years since I was deep in credit card debt with very low FICO scores, and I'm happy to finally be on my financial feet again.

-- My father, who is 30 years older than me, is very much alive and actively manages his credit cards and his investment portfolio.  I do not see myself winding down my years of financial activity for several more decades.

-- I am extremely detail oriented and know my credit card activity, balances, payment dues dates, and points/miles/cashback balances at all times.  If I wanted to manage 35 cards, I could do so better than most members of this forum.  I happen to think most people should get by with 10 or fewer cards.

-- I usually detect fraud within 24 of hours of it occurring.  It's easy.

-- I hate Mai Tais and tropical beaches.