@cws-21 wrote:... I usually take a long time deciding whether or not to apply for a new card. Like everything in my life, I want to be as certain as I can be that something that I am adding, in this case a new credit card, will bring enough value to my life to justify the additional "clutter." To be honest, I spend as much time, or maybe even less, deciding what I can get rid of in my life including, but not only, credit cards to reduce the clutter and noise.
That's a great point and a wise strategy, @cws-21. There's nothing wrong with adding as many (or as few) cards as long as I recognize the pros and cons of either direction on the continuum.
If I have no cards or only one or two, my credit score may suffer.
Beyond that, on the lower end of the scale, a small card collection is easier to manage but might suffer from lack of lender diversity, lack of network (AX-VS-MC-DS) diversity, lower overall limits which may weigh down utilization, or sacrificed rewards from not targeting high-spend categories.
On the high end of the scale, I could likewise overly complicate matters where my cards become a burden to maintain, normal monthly spend is spread too widely among too many cards which might lead to CLD or closures, it might be easier to miss due dates or fraud on an account without a high level of discipline, and rewards are diluted among so many pools that useful redemption becomes difficult.
So the challenge we all face is in finding that balance between the two extremes that is right for us. It's a personal decision and is easier said than done.
@Aim_High wrote:
@cws-21 wrote:... I usually take a long time deciding whether or not to apply for a new card. Like everything in my life, I want to be as certain as I can be that something that I am adding, in this case a new credit card, will bring enough value to my life to justify the additional "clutter." To be honest, I spend as much time, or maybe even less, deciding what I can get rid of in my life including, but not only, credit cards to reduce the clutter and noise.
That's a great point and a wise strategy, @cws-21. There's nothing wrong with adding as many (or as few) cards as long as I recognize the pros and cons of either direction on the continuum.
If I have no cards or only one or two, my credit score may suffer.
Beyond that, on the lower end of the scale, a small card collection is easier to manage but might suffer from lack of lender diversity, lack of network (AX-VS-MC-DS) diversity, lower overall limits which may weigh down utilization, or sacrificed rewards from not targeting high-spend categories.
On the high end of the scale, I could likewise overly complicate matters where my cards become a burden to maintain, normal monthly spend is spread too widely among too many cards which might lead to CLD or closures, it might be easier to miss due dates or fraud on an account without a high level of discipline, and rewards are diluted among so many pools that useful redemption becomes difficult.
So the challenge we all face is in finding that balance between the two extremes that is right for us. It's a personal decision and is easier said than done.
Yes, yes, to everything you both said. Even in my small collection, I already have a couple cards I wish I didn't have. Cards that have no rewards or rewards that are redundant because I get as good or better from some other card. I hang on to them and put a little spend here and there on them because they prop up my total CL and because they're old enough that it would hurt my AAoA to close 'em. But looking forward, I'm trying to only get cards that work in my long-term strategy. I'm not chasing SUBs forever. If I get a SUB, that's great, but I'm not picking a card based on a SUB. I may change the order in which I get them because this one has a great SUB that may be for a limited time. But if I wouldn't want it without the SUB, then I don't need it with the SUB. I do not want 40+ cards to maintain, or 20+ for that matter.
Starting Score: EQ8 680, TU8 713, EX8 701
@cws-21 wrote:
@mgood wrote:
Yes, yes, to everything you both said. Even in my small collection, I already have a couple cards I wish I didn't have. Cards that have no rewards or rewards that are redundant because I get as good or better from some other card.@mgood, I couldn't agree with you more. Similarly, I have a small collection and, even with that small collection, I have one card that I wish I did not have. I, too, am focusing on my long-term strategy, though I acknowledge that strategy may change over time
One thing I've seen firsthand with decades of credit is that change is inevitable. And because of that, many of us will have cards that become obsolete as the offerings change, as I grow my cards and credit score, and as my spending and lifestyle change. As a result, I've learned to accept that I may continue to have cards in my wallet that I've outgrown, and that I probably will never be 100% "credit complete." The last few years I've been updating my cards and most of these products either were nonexistent or unavailable to me just 10-15 years ago. I'm still trying to find that right-sized balance. I could downsize to a small handful of cards yet even the 20 I have now doesn't feel as unmanageable as I thought it might a few years ago when I had less than half that many. And downsizing below 8-10 cards bare minimum would entail some large sacrifices of rewards, credit age, or other factors. So yes, that strategy needs to be flexible and open to evolution.
@Aim_High wrote:One thing I've seen firsthand with decades of credit is that change is inevitable. . . .
And I'm not saying "I'll never . . . "
But I'm saying that I'm looking carefully at my long-term strategy and going for cards that fit into that design. I realize that plan can and probably will change over time.
A "perfect setup", if it exists at all, would be more individual than a fingerprint. For me, and I imagine maybe for some other people on this board, there's an element similar to (for example) a person who couldn't afford a nice car when they were young, now splurging on cars. Or could be anything - a woman whose parents couldn't afford to buy her dolls when she was a child now has a big doll collection. In my case, I've either actually had, or at least assumed I had, bad credit or thin credit or no credit from my 20s through my late 40s, and now that I have improving credit, I enjoy adding things that seemed impossible earlier. I would like to say it's about maximizing rewards, diversifying lenders etc, and I do think about that, but there is an element of it that isn't really all that logical, that's more along the lines of how a collector thinks. If something is hard to get, I want to get it just for the sense of achievement. I would be more embarrassed about it if I thought I was at risk of running up balances, but that is not a problem I have. At some point, I may feel satisfied, and cut back to a more logic-based setup.
