I have bad credit. I currently have no credit cards and I'm looking to get some secured cards. My question is how many cards should I try and get and which ones are the best.
Starting Score: EQ 564, TU 560
@whodatnation2 wrote:I have bad credit. I currently have no credit cards and I'm looking to get some secured cards. My question is how many cards should I try and get and which ones are the best.
I'll let others speak to which cards, but I'd say stop at three. Three open cards with clean history, patience, and time is all you need.
Read around here and you'll come across a ton of posts by rebuilders who got forty-'leven itty-bitty cards, which won't grow, and they never use, and it makes them nuts.
Since you want to impress future lenders, combine restraint and good-billing paying. 
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
@whodatnation2 wrote:I have bad credit. I currently have no credit cards and I'm looking to get some secured cards. My question is how many cards should I try and get and which ones are the best.
I'll let others speak to which cards, but I'd say stop at three. Three open cards with clean history, patience, and time is all you need.
Read around here and you'll come across a ton of posts by rebuilders who got forty-'leven itty-bitty cards, which won't grow, and they never use, and it makes them nuts.
Since you want to impress future lenders, combine restraint and good-billing paying.
@Anonymous wrote:Hauling, I know you're a resident genius when it comes to this. Why does it make them crazy to have a bunch of crappy cards, as long as there's no annual fee?
I doubt that; it's just that I've read so many.
I think it's because when we are rebuilding our credit, we're coming from a time when we did a lot of dumb things, and we're angry/ embarassed/ defensive/ whatever about the stuff we did. Then, during rebuilding, we make a lot of changes in ourselves (if we're doing it right!), and we become more thoughtful and more responsible with our money and credit. It's not easy making big changes in attitude like that.
So when we try to turn some of the rebuilder cards into better cards, in the sense of lower APR's, higher CL's, no fees, etc., and they won't change, we tend to think that all our hard work has gone unrecognized or even dismissed, and a touchy emotional area in our brains lights up.
The thing to remember about most rebuilder cards is that they AREN'T (aren't, aren't, aren't, aren't, aren't) going to grow with you. They're not designed to do this. The banks issue them to those with credit "issues", and once your issues are mostly in the past, you're not really a customer for that card any more.
I think of rebuilder cards as training wheels for your little-kid bike. While you're learning to ride, they give you self-confidence and help save you from nasty spills. Once you know what you're doing, the training wheels are just in the way. Take them off your bike and pass them along to someone else just starting out.
And the much simpler explanation might be that it's a confounded nuisance keeping track of forty-'leven cards. 
edit to add (I meant to write this initially) --and many others have bad credit because of some sort of disaster that hit, and they had to put things on plastic, and couldn't keep up. Think uninsured medical bills, hurricanes destroying your home and your job, and so forth. These people feel like they're being judged unfairly and lumped with those like me who simply goobered up their credit with late payments, and it upsets them.
The biggest reason a lot of people want a rebuilder card to grow is in most cases it is people's first card, or a very old account and they dont want to close it for that reason.
I was feeling the same way about my current Cap 1 platinum, I always knew I would have to one day (hopefully soon) apply for prime cards and have to close my cap 1 but didn't want to lose the account history. However since I took a look at my credit reports and found out BoA gave me a credit card when I opened my checking account back in 2004 I no longer care about losing the history on my current card since my credit report is 7 years old now and I shouldnt be hurt too bad if I close my card after 1 year. I never even received the card so it had a 0 balance for 4 years until it was closed by creditor. Still I thank them for the AAoA boost.
Thank you BoA
