CC Usage Rules

Rhaeny · ‎11-20-2024

@Anonymous wrote:
@GZG wrote:
@Rhaeny wrote:
So my question is how do you handle sock drawer cards and how often should they be used? Does it affect your score constantly showing activity on all of your cards every month? Or would it be better to just use them periodically and put my spend on one or two cards?
6 months is a pretty safe, conserative amount of time to make sure cards get usage this often. cards used at least every 6 months pretty much never get closed for inactivity.

as you've seen, it's not unreasonable for a card to go a year, if not 2+ without being closed for inactivity, but this can depend widely on the lender.

I would either schedule a bill to go out on all of them monthly, or just schedule two days a year 6 months apart to put a dollar charge on any SD cards to keep them in use so you're not closed for inactivity
While not the common MyFico view, you may also want to think about whether the keep-alive effort is worthwhile. If your scores are now reasonable, with a decent average age, decide how significant one or more of the older cards dropping off will be, particularly as they can continue to report for 10 years or so. Having old, useless cards close isn't necessarily a disaster.

I had to rebuild after a disastrous downfall in 2014 that sent me into bk. I was so outdone that I didn't start rebuilding 2018, so what I have is only since then. I think my AAOA ranges from 6 to 7 years. Those rebuilder cards I only wanted to keep for age so I will just use them maybe 2 or 3 times per year.

I don't think my scores are fantastic, just good. I have a long way to go to reach 10 years so I'll have to do some juggling with those old useles ones until then. I'm pretty happy with what I have now and don't see a need for anything else.

I was just wondering how FICO scores when it was reporting on all 10 cards small balances (1 to 3% utilization) vs just one or two cards. I'm going to see if it makes any difference and just SD the oldies.