@Anonymous wrote:
Should I close my card and join hers or should we both just keep our seperate cards?
What's the biggest priority here and do you both agree (if you're getting married you need to get used to being part of the marriage) on that? If consolidating and simplifying matter more then it would make sense. If scoring matters most then it really doesn't make much sense. Are there other relevant concerns that you or she has with regard to this topic?
@Anonymous wrote:
She is insisting that once we are married I cancel my Discover card and become a joint holder on hers. I am hesitant to do so because my Discover has a higher limit (paid off every month) and I don't want my credit score to drop because I close the card. She says we only need one Discover and it will be better for my score because she has a 10 year history where I only have 2.
Verify first that Discover will convert a card to joint. Most creditors will not and if you have to app for a new joint card you'll definitely take hits to AAoA and from the inquiry.
@Anonymous wrote:
She does not want to become a joint user on my card because she is afraid that her score will drop because she will have too much available credit with both of our cards.
She might want to look at:
http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx
More available credit generally means lower utilization. Utilization is the 30% slice in the link above.
A given creditor may look at her avaialble credit and if they deem that she has enough or too much based on their own criteria then they might not be willing to extend more but more available credit will not drop her score.
@Anonymous wrote:
I'm not sure if closing one of the cards would increase our overall utilization because we pay expenses with our cards. We spread them out over our cards and then pay them off every month. If we close one card then we will have to put more on another card. we never carry a balance. Is this what you mean by utilization?
The math for utilization is very easy:
balance(s) / limit(s)
Calculate before and after to determine impact.
Though keep in mind that reported utilization is what matters for scoring purposes -- not carried balances which are an entirely separate matter. One can pay in full (not carry balances) and still have reported utilization. As indicated above, unless you're paying your balances off just prior to statement end to ensure that 0 balances report then you probably have reported utilization (i.e. if your statements have statement balances other than 0). You can also look at your reports or use a CMS to verify. Credit Karma will let you look at your reported utilization with TransUnion at no cost.
