Thinned the herd

[MAZDA3]

Closed DCCU, TD Bank, and my one month old Barclays Aviator today. Down to seven cards and hope to knock it down one more by June. Feels good. 🤗

[Anonymous]

You may have another thread I missed, but are you closing cards with AF? Secured? Bank accounts as well? Just wondering why. You’ve closed 3 and only have 7 remaining. 10 is not an extraordinary amount if there is no AF and unsecured. Just wondering. Good luck with your plan, perhaps you could elaborate.

[UpperNwGuy]

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@Anonymous wrote:
You may have another thread I missed, but are you closing cards with AF? Secured? Bank accounts as well? Just wondering why. You’ve closed 3 and only have 7 remaining. 10 is not an extraordinary amount if there is no AF and unsecured. Just wondering. Good luck with your plan, perhaps you could elaborate.

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For most American credit card users, ten is most definitely an extraordinary amount.  The people on this forum are unusual in the number of cards that they have.

Congrats MAZDA3!  I went from 9 to 6 last summer but am now up to 7, and like you, I think I should close another one soon.

[Peteyglad]

Congrats! I participatated in the thinning myself. Tried to close 3 cards. Completely closed Cap One Venture, Moved limits from my Barlclay Arrival+ to Commence and closed the Arrival+ and tried t cancel Citi AA, but was given a retention bonus that I just hit so will probably be closing that card down soon anyway.

I have a question though Mazda3, why did you open and close the Aviator so soon? Did you get it just for the bonus?

[Gregory1776]

Congratulations! I’ve got more than enough cards for my income/spending for a while, until something changes, like a new job, or moving. None will happen in the foreseeable future.

[Dalmus]

I'm in the same boat...  Way more credit than I need for my income, and way more cards than I need!   I closed two cards last week, and two more are on the chopping block for this month.  Like you, I had a bit of a retention offer on one when I tried to close it last week, so I'll hit that and then close it in a month or two, as well.

Unfortuntely, that will still leave me with 14 major CC's and 4 store cards... I can drop one store card, but use the other three regularly.  I have a plan to get under 10 majors though...

[Anonymous]

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@UpperNwGuy wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
You may have another thread I missed, but are you closing cards with AF? Secured? Bank accounts as well? Just wondering why. You’ve closed 3 and only have 7 remaining. 10 is not an extraordinary amount if there is no AF and unsecured. Just wondering. Good luck with your plan, perhaps you could elaborate.

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For most American credit card users, ten is most definitely an extraordinary amount.  The people on this forum are unusual in the number of cards that they have.

Congrats MAZDA3!  I went from 9 to 6 last summer but am now up to 7, and like you, I think I should close another one soon.

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The average American has something like 19k in credit card debt.  I would expect they have multiple cards to carry that much credit card debt.  I prefer to be in the 20+ card group with zero credit card debt.  

[MAZDA3]

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@Anonymous wrote:
You may have another thread I missed, but are you closing cards with AF? Secured? Bank accounts as well? Just wondering why. You’ve closed 3 and only have 7 remaining. 10 is not an extraordinary amount if there is no AF and unsecured. Just wondering. Good luck with your plan, perhaps you could elaborate.

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No other thread.

DCCU - $1500 limit never use the card anymore, DCCU customer service sucks. It was a nightmare dealing with them during my car shopping last summer, and i’ve been a member over 20 years. Ever since they seperated from Delta they’ve gone downhill badly. Called to cancel card but they require it in writing, so I went to a branch. No one could close the card without a letter - standing in front of them with my ID was not good enough. Just stupid.

TD Bank -  $7500 limit. Just did not feel like keeping the card.

Aviator - $4700 limit. Got the card for the bonus, and I already have the Citi AA. Needed to top off AA account for a SE Asia biz class ticket in February.

Cards i’m keeping:

NFCU Plat - $18k (oldest CC account)

NFCU Go - $15k (probably only until January though). App’d for BT transfer offer.

Citi AA - $6.5k (need to keep open due to 24 month rule)

Citi TY Premier - $5k (working on bonus spend)

Barclays Wyndham - $5k

Discover - $10.5k

Chase IHG - $2k 

If Arrival Premier comes to their senses and offers a SUB and fixes the awful transfer ratios I might app for it, otherwise I need to be good and not app for anything until June 2019 when my BK falls off. I would close the Citi cards but don’t want to restart the SUB clock. 

[Dalmus]

In an article from Experian, the average American has about 5 cards (3 majors and 2 store cards) with a total credit card debt of about $8,000.   Factor in a car loan, and the debt jumps to $24,000.  Average mortgage adds another $200K.

I think for MyFico-ers, having only 5 cards is a pretty rare thing!  I would find it extremely hard, as I don't want to be beholden to one network or bank, so diversity is important to me.  But, on the flip side, the more you have, the more you have to keep track of.   Vicious circle!

[Anonymous]

Joining/ motivated just closed Amex/Deserve/Ollo I plan to close 1 a month that is in the $1k limits