When should i garden ???

[u2bjohnson06]

I've recently got about 6 store cards to help boost my credit. All from Synchrony. Now what should I do? What does gardening mean? Should I apply for more? Or work those? Please help!!!! Thanks

[Pway]

I just read your other thread of all the approvals.  I would personally wait, you have gained quite a few cards on your app spree of store cards.  Six cards was not needed to boost your score, you only need three for maximum fico scoring.  

Gardening yes, a must as you are rebuilding your credit.  Don't app for any more cards.  Head over to the garden club and chat it up there.  I say give yourself atleast six months or more in the GC.  Work on what you have currently in your profile.  You want those cards to grow and opening credit lines like you have they will not.

We get so caught up in seeing the approved screen some times we forget the damage it does to our SCORES, AAOA, ETC.

[u2bjohnson06]

Thank you! I'm leaning a lot!! To the gardening I go! Thanks for reading.

[Irish80]

Just a reminder to you.  This forum is specifically for people to post about credit card approvals.  You have two threads that will be moved to other forums like 'credit cards'.  Thank you for your cooperation

[SouthJamaica]

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@u2bjohnson06 wrote:
I've recently got about 6 store cards to help boost my credit. All from Synchrony. Now what should I do? What does gardening mean? Should I apply for more? Or work those? Please help!!!! Thanks

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My advice would be:

1 do not apply for any more cards for at least 6 months

2. do not ever apply for any more store cards

[2011XTERROR]

^ I was just about to say no more store cards. If you have more regular cards than store cards then sure but you don't want your profile flooded with them.

[Creditplz]

6 cards just recently?. Go to the garden now.. If you don't most of your denials will be flooded with "most recent account opened to new" etc.. Let them age and score will grow.

On another note if you got the Walmart card take advantage of the free Fico ! And try getting SP CLI on them.

[MyLoFICO]

Take it from someone who made the same mistake, stop. Go garden. I hope you only got cards you will actually use and didn't get them just because you could. Congrats on the cards but don't repeat my second mistake. That was not listening to these folks who have made these mistakes already. 

If I had mine to do over again I would get 2 cards, garden 6 months and wait to see the effect on my score over time. Then, if it went up high enough I would app for 2 more cards but prime cards. If I got denied or my score had not come up enough I would have gotten 2 more cards. Apping for several cards at once hurts your AAoA and getting them all at once will actually increase your chances of denials, the banks will see too many new accounts and HP's.