Up until two days ago, I only had a couple credit cards because I like to keep everything simple and consolidated. Well, I went on an app spree the other day and I now have 8! 
That's not enough for every month of the year, and people also said that I should be putting a small charge on each card every month just to build payment history and increase the likelihood of increases in the future. I know there are people here with many more cards than me. How do you guys keep up?
P.S. I never carry balances, but I buy everything I purchase with a credit card. I've put all my cards in order of which ones I want to use most often based on rewards/limit:
- Citi Double Cash Card: $6,900 /2% cashback
- USAA Rewards Card: $3,000 / 1.5% cashback
- Discover It Card: $3,600 / 1% cashback (2-3% on some things that I don't really buy)
- Capital One QuickSilver: $1,500 / 1.5% cashback
- Amex Blue Cash Everyday: $1,000 / 1% cashback (2-3% on some things that I don't really buy)
- Citi Diamond Preferred: $2,000 / NO rewards << I want a PC. It got a CLI today (up from $200)
- Capital One Journey, $500 / 1.25% cashback
- Capital One Venture: $1,000 / 1 point for every $2 spent
Should I pick 1-2 to use (like Double Cash and USAA) regularly and put a recurring charge and auto-pay on the rest?
I put a few on recurring bills. cell phone, cable, netflix, etc.. Then I just set those cards to auto-pay.
Use the card that offers you the best rewards for that particular purchase and for the cards that dont reguarly get tasked to do much have those cards set to background transactions.....(Gym Membership..Spotify .....Netflix....etc)...Win Win....You get the best cash back and all accounts stay active....
Alot of people tend to think alot of cards means alot of spend but Alot of cards just means Optimized Rewards
Oops! It's actually the Venture One, which means it's 1.25 points per $1 spent. I haven't even gotten it yet (approved for it yesterday), so I got confused
@Anonymous wrote:Up until two days ago, I only had a couple credit cards because I like to keep everything simple and consolidated. Well, I went on an app spree the other day and I now have 8!
That's not enough for every month of the year, and people also said that I should be putting a small charge on each card every month just to build payment history and increase the likelihood of increases in the future. I know there are people here with many more cards than me. How do you guys keep up?
P.S. I never carry balances, but I buy everything I purchase with a credit card. I've put all my cards in order of which ones I want to use most often based on rewards/limit:
- Citi Double Cash Card: $6,900 /2% cashback
- USAA Rewards Card: $3,000 / 1.5% cashback
- Discover It Card: $3,600 / 1% cashback (2-3% on some things that I don't really buy)
- Capital One QuickSilver: $1,500 / 1.5% cashback
- Amex Blue Cash Everyday: $1,000 / 1% cashback (2-3% on some things that I don't really buy)
- Citi Diamond Preferred: $2,000 / NO rewards << I want a PC. It got a CLI today (up from $200)
- Capital One Journey, $500 / 1.25% cashback
- Capital One Venture: $1,000 / 1 point for every $2 spent
Should I pick 1-2 to use (like Double Cash and USAA) regularly and put a recurring charge and auto-pay on the rest?
Use the Discover/Amex BCE for reward categories, and the Citi DC for everything else.
Why do you need any of the other cards? A six card app spree is pretty intense. Which cards did you have previously?
It seems your focus is on cash back, so you would have been better selecting other cards with targeted reward categories, these others really aren't going to do anything for you.
I am currently in the process of closing down several cards that I obtained that never really provided any value to me. My suggestion now is wait a year and close several of those cards and replace them with better category cards.
@Anonymous wrote:Up until two days ago, I only had a couple credit cards because I like to keep everything simple and consolidated. Well, I went on an app spree the other day and I now have 8!
That's not enough for every month of the year, and people also said that I should be putting a small charge on each card every month just to build payment history and increase the likelihood of increases in the future. I know there are people here with many more cards than me. How do you guys keep up?
P.S. I never carry balances, but I buy everything I purchase with a credit card. I've put all my cards in order of which ones I want to use most often based on rewards/limit:
- Citi Double Cash Card: $6,900 /2% cashback
- USAA Rewards Card: $3,000 / 1.5% cashback
- Discover It Card: $3,600 / 1% cashback (2-3% on some things that I don't really buy)
- Capital One QuickSilver: $1,500 / 1.5% cashback
- Amex Blue Cash Everyday: $1,000 / 1% cashback (2-3% on some things that I don't really buy)
- Citi Diamond Preferred: $2,000 / NO rewards << I want a PC. It got a CLI today (up from $200)
- Capital One Journey, $500 / 1.25% cashback
- Capital One Venture: $1,000 / 1 point for every $2 spent
Should I pick 1-2 to use (like Double Cash and USAA) regularly and put a recurring charge and auto-pay on the rest?
I'm a little confused.
Discover is 1% base and 5% rotating categories. Not 2-3%. Sign up for the categories each quarter and take advantage. This quarter, it's 5% back on restaurants.
Blue Cash Everyday is 3% back at grocery stores. You don't grocery shop?
Citi Diamond Preferred grants you access to Citi Easy Deals. Log in here to see the current offers. Often you can buy gift cards at popular stores at a discount ($15 for a $25 Starbucks card, $90 for a $100 Amazon card, etc).
If that's not your liking, definitely consider a product change to Citi Dividend, which offers 5% quarterly categories that are distinct from Discover's quarterly categories.
@Anonymous wrote:
Put BCE (3%Grocery), IT (5% category) and DC (everything else) in your wallet and put the rest in SD, then rotate SD cards each month to put a charge on. I don't know what was your thought process in planning your app spree but it seems like you were just throwing darts, a lot of useless redundancies.
You know exactly what happened. Same thing that always happens. Someone wants to build some credit and starts applying for whatever credit they can get. I've done it.
P.S. darts requires skill, unless you're drunk. Then it requires everyone to get out of the way.
@fittiger I’m not going to close any of the cards.
I got them because I was professionally advised to open more accounts because I have a very thin file (I was told to shoot for 10) and use them regularly.
I plan on using the Double Cash (2%) as my daily and doing the above with the rest. I used to use the Discover Card (1%) as my go-to.
It’s not about cash back or rewards really with those others cards, just about building history and having more available credit / good standing accounts. Most were actually recommended to me by said advisor at the local Credit Union.
Maybe it was bad advice, but no I didn’t just wake up and say, “I NEED NORE CREDIT TODAY!” ...and I’m too young to do drunk apps.
I take my finances seriously and I have goals/circumstances not discussed here, hence why I sat down with an advisor.
Go poo poo on someone else’s parade please. I’m happy
I got them because I was professionally advised to open more accounts because I have a very thin file (I was told to shoot for 10) and use them regularly.
I plan on using the Double Cash (2%) as my daily and doing the above with the rest. I used to use the Discover Card (1%) as my go-to.
It’s not about cash back or rewards really with those others cards, just about building history and having more available credit / good standing accounts. Most were actually recommended to me by said advisor at the local Credit Union.
Maybe it was bad advice, but no I didn’t just wake up and say, “I NEED NORE CREDIT TODAY!” ...and I’m too young to do drunk apps.
I take my finances seriously and I have goals/circumstances not discussed here, hence why I sat down with an advisor.
Go poo poo on someone else’s parade please. I’m happy