@Kforce wrote:If one uses CC's like you and I, it is not really important. I have lowered and capped all my cards at $20,000 and a couple were $50,000 prior. Had all at 20k and the last card I got gave me 40k, had to have it lowered. Have purchased many houses, cars etc, and having capped CC limits is not an issue. It seem to also not have much effect on starting limits for me. As long as my limit is at a level where monthly utilization is reasonable and large enough for my largest monthly purchases it is good.
<snip>
Have not been able to figure what good it is having 5-10 times ones income in a credit product with 18% interest. I must be missing something.
I think you hit the nail on the head. For a short while years ago I was into the "lets see how high this can go" game, but I now look at the available credit and see no real advantage to having an excess of it. I'm not terribly concerned about starting limits with new lenders - my SO opened two new cards this year with a very limited credit history (mostly AU on my accounts) and both SL were $25k+.
I can't even image having 5-10 times my income in credit products, I'm pretty sure banks would balk long before then. I know I would. 
I don't think reducing credit limits is totally crazy, @disdreamin. But as others have pointed out, it may be unnecessary in many cases and could have some impacts under certain circumstances.
Ironically, I've been focusing on higher limits on most cards in the past few years, so this is not something I see myself doing any time soon! But I'll be the first to admit that I have a very generous utilization padding on all my cards and could take a haircut on most without harm.
IMO, I'd rather have too much than not enough. As more information about how FICO scores are determined has slowly become available in the past 10-15 years, I learned how much more than just modest utilization could hurt a credit score. It actually made me a little angry since FICO wasn't developed until long after I started using cards and Fair Issac was less straightforward about the score components in early years. So I decided that if that's the game that FICO wants to play, I will play by their "rules."
For many years, I thought I could actually USE my full full credit limit without concern. Now I know that my "real" limit without starting to harm my FICO score (and possibly start lenders to react and balance chase) is only about 9% or less of what my statements show on paper. So for round numbers, I always REMOVE the last number of my credit limit and consider that my real limit. (ie: a $25,000 limit is actually $2500 for practical purposes.) My advice is that if you can do that and still consider your new, lowered limits more than sufficient for your highest anticipated spending on that card, by all means go ahead. If not, I would think twice. It's a lot harder and more time-consuming to add those limits back than to slash them.
@disdreamin your not alone, I too have seriously thought about reducing a couple of cards I have.
Funny..... I've done searches on this forum regarding that and lets just say it's not common.. 
I think the perfect limit is spend never exceeds 20% in the entire life I have the card. I have a couple cards that I only use for bonus catagories that I'll never come close to even 5-10%. Those 2 cards make up 50% of my total CL. I'm not worried about total total utilization since it's normally only 2-3% so if I lose both cards completely it only goes to 4-6%.
There is something to be said about the feeling to have the right amount of credit.
