Closed Discover It today

[MACFRME]

Decided to close my Discover It card today. It was about two years old, had a $6,200 limit, and a 21.24% APR that they would not lower. I've been carrying quite a bit of credit card debt ($35k in my name and more in my spouse's), and I thought keeping this card open would not help me get out of debt. I don't think I will miss having this card, because carrying a balance one month eliminates all the gain I get from the 5% categories. In addition, the card was only reporting to Equifax for me, so it was not helping my reports too much overall.  Maybe this was not the wisest credit move in the long run, but I have plenty of other cards and available credit (at least for now), the rest of them are reporting correctly, and I feel a lot better about it. 

[takeshi74]

Keep in mind that APR's are set based on your credit.  If you have a lot of credit card debt then it may not unreasonable for them to not lower your APR.  You definitely have to pay in full to benefit from rewards.

[chalupaman]

You have a bunch of other great cards though. Have you considered getting a card like the Barclaycard Ring where you do a BT on some of that debt and pay it down quicker?

[MACFRME]

Oh, yes. I totally understand that. I just want to prevent myself from charging up more debt at 21.24%. I think my next highest APR is at 15.99%. I'm actually paying 0% on most of the debt though. I have a $2,900 balance sitting on this Discover account, which I am trying to pay off ASAP.

[chalupaman]

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@MACFRME wrote:
Oh, yes. I totally understand that. I just want to prevent myself from charging up more debt at 21.24%. I think my next highest APR is at 15.99%. I'm actually paying 0% on most of the debt though. I have a $2,900 balance sitting on this Discover account, which I am trying to pay off ASAP.

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That's great to hear. Big chunk of mine are on the 0 APR cards and I recently did a BT on my CapOne to my Discover for the 12 months 0 APR offer. I've been commited to getting my own debt down too.

[MACFRME]

In regard to a BT, I can't seem to get approved for any new cards right now because of my scores. I have maybe 3 new accounts in the last year, a low AAoA (1 year, 8 months), and I have 5 accounts with balances. I'm only 23, so my file is not very thick. On top of that, I just realized that my auto loan has not been reporting my payments since July of 2014, which I now need to dispute. 

[Blodreina]

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@MACFRME wrote:
Oh, yes. I totally understand that. I just want to prevent myself from charging up more debt at 21.24%. I think my next highest APR is at 15.99%. I'm actually paying 0% on most of the debt though. I have a $2,900 balance sitting on this Discover account, which I am trying to pay off ASAP.

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Totally understand that.  I might have considered just destroying the card.  You'd have to wait 4 business days to use it if you requested a replacement lol.

[chalupaman]

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@MACFRME wrote:

In regard to a BT, I can't seem to get approved for any new cards right now because of my scores. I have maybe 3 new accounts in the last year, a low AAoA (1 year, 8 months), and I have 5 accounts with balances. I'm only 23, so my file is not very thick. On top of that, I just realized that my auto loan has not been reporting my payments since July of 2014, which I now need to dispute. 

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That's always the most annoying part about trying to get BT cards. They're much harder to get when you really need them. Thankfully there are some rewards cards out there that just happen to have 0 APR BT offers like what Chase offers with their Freedom card, etc. It's like a Catch-22 situation.

[bdhu2001]

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@MACFRME wrote:
Oh, yes. I totally understand that. I just want to prevent myself from charging up more debt at 21.24%. I think my next highest APR is at 15.99%. I'm actually paying 0% on most of the debt though. I have a $2,900 balance sitting on this Discover account, which I am trying to pay off ASAP.

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I'd have advised you to cut up the card, but that's now water under the bridge.  Instead, go on mint or get the debt free app and pay off all your bills.  Ignore all of the teaser rates and take control of your finances. Work out a pay-off budget that includes your normal monthly expenses like food and gas. Produce an excel spread sheet so that you truly track where your money is going and then stick to it.

Today a lot of people's spending is on fast food and restaurants, because of our fast paced lives. If you eliminated a card, because you thought you'd be tempted to charge, then you need to stop charging until you figure out your budget based on your income. Your first budget is going to be wrong and you'll have to re-evaluate it for a few months before you finally have a budget that works.