Have too many cards but want another?

[Anonymous]

I've worked very hard on my husband's and my own credit in the last several years. My only issue was not having credit. I started with a citi forward card 4 years ago. My husband had medical collections from a surgery without insurance, so I managed to make deals with the collection agencies to pay and get them all taken off, all but one which we paid but didn't fall off until a few months ago. After I cleaned up his credit he was able to get approved for his first card 1 year and 11 months ago. I pretty much applied for whatever he could get to start building credit, not thinking about how they would be redundant and how we would use them.
My cards:
Citi forward card, March 13', $9500 limit, $1700 util (17% apr)
Amex bcp, May 2015, $30k limit, $6k util (13% apr)
Discover it, July 2015, $7.6k limit, 0 util (17% apr)

His cards:
Chase freedom, April 2015, 3k limit, 0 util (24% apr)
Discover it, July 2015, 8.6k limit, 0 util (17% apr)
He "accidentally" opened a Home Depot card for 2 days
AU on all mine

No derogs on either report
His FICO per discover it is 775
Mine is 755 per Amex, 767 per discover, 776 per citi

He has 1 or 2 inquiries on each bureau, I have 5 from a car loan that will fall off in July. 90k income.

This was our families first exposure to credit cards, and we found ourselves in 21k debt soon after getting the cards in 2015 thanks to needing to move quickly and then moving into a fixer upper where several large purchases ended up on the cards. So we are paying them down and plan to have them paid off in June. We put the money on them when we first got them then didn't touch the cards until recently. I've been using them for points recently only for my daily spends where I PIF.

Now I feel so much pressure to use all of the cards because of them giving us credit but I'm finding that I regret some of them. Regretting having discover it, especially me and my husband both having accounts. Can't close his bc he only has 2 cards and this is his highest line of credit. Thinking about closing mine but not sure how it will affect me. Also thinking of pc the Amex bcp to bce because most of my grocery spend is at Walmart. Would like to pc the citi but don't think they will.

Now my issue is that I would like a CSP for the SUB and would like to use the chase cards for most of my spend for the UR. On my husband's freedom account he has the CSP in his offers with 16.xx% apr so I feel like he has a good shot of getting approved. I keep thinking about applying after his oldest account falls off in April because we are going on vacation in June and we eat out a lot. I would get the card and we would be able to make the 4K spend and PIF so I could get the UR points, but I'm just so conflicted about having all these cards. I don't know if I'm buying into the hype about the chase trio, which in my case would be the chase duo for daily spend. I don't know how to incorporate all of these cards into my spend so that they are being used when I really want to use one brand most of the time to maximize rewards. I realize that I am all over the place with concerns but do you have any advice about applying for the CSP or about closing down any cards? Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

Close what you don't use or find useful; apply for what you do want or will find useful. Really no need to stress. Less than 10% utility is ideal for maxing your fico but I don't foresee your percentages being high enough to warrant a decline. You both should be fine. Chase duo/trio/quad is ARGUABLY the greatest set of cards that span across both reward types (cash back and points). There's a lot of versatility there.

[K-in-Boston]

In my experience and several others here, the CSP in his Offers page is pretty much a guarantee with the best terms and sounds like a great fit for your family.

Are the Citi and AmEx balances @ 0% or similar?  If not, I would certainly move them over to the Discover accounts for a promo APR to save money (only move to his AFTER he takes the CSP).  Having two Discovers isn't a horrible idea.  You may find that if you have a category quarter where you will spend more than $1500, the 5% cash back is better than the UR points - and Discover always has great low/no APR BT offers if you have an emergency.  I would assume that you plan to make yourself an AU on both of his Chase accounts?  If so, you may want to "return the favor" so to speak by making him an AU on your AmEx to pad his util.

[redpat]

Don't feel you have to use them all.  If you chose UR points then get the cards that would give you the best accumulation of ur points based on your spend.  It is better to stick to one or two reward programs so you don't have points or cashback all over the place.  

Once you put your plan in place it becomes a lot easier and those other cards become distant memory in the sock drawer or closed.

[Anonymous]

Yeah no worries about using them all, just put a very small purchase at least once per year on cards if you want to keep them alive.  Many here do it a little more often than that to be safe.  A minimum of 3 cards is best for scoring purposes.

If you really want to close some, I would recommend to absolutely keep Discover.

[Anonymous]

Oh hey just one other thing I'll mention.  Changing all due dates to be the same makes managing multiple accounts tremendously easier. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies! I didn't know that discover offers 0% apr balance transfers until now. I've never done a balance transfer, but am considering transferring my Amex balance. Is there any downside to a balance transfer? Does it make the credit card company angry that you are taking your money from? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Discover loves taking BT's.

You can do soft pull credit line increases on their site every few months.  I would do one before the BT, so you'll have lower utilization.

[K-in-Boston]

The 0% usually has a 3% up-front fee. It you think you won't pay it off in a year, you can always choose 4.99% or similar with no fee. Discover, Bank of America and PenFed all love BTs. Definitely ask for CLIs on both Discover cards first and I would advise maxing out the Discover when doing a BT but hitting 75% may make sense to you to save money rather than worry about 10 points of credit score temporarily. Just don't go above 90% and keep in mind the fee or any interest that would add to that.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks for the replies! I didn't know that discover offers 0% apr balance transfers until now. I've never done a balance transfer, but am considering transferring my Amex balance. Is there any downside to a balance transfer? Does it make the credit card company angry that you are taking your money from? Thanks.

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Hit the BT button on Discover main page. You should have a great 0% offer LOW transfer fee or zero, or a 5 or 6 percent APR for like a year+ and if not and just a lousy 5% transfer fee offer be patient and good to them and you will! They do not get angry at all

Yes open that Chase .. partially so i can see what happens, but I'll find out myself soon. I got that under the offers page too! Hoping it is 10k as the MINIMUM is 5k. Get 4k spend lined up which sounds like. Remember you will have like only 80 or 85 days after the mailing process bc it is from approved date. Maybe they overnight it they should! All the best to yous!