should I close some junk cards?

[rebuilding]

so wierd.. it was barely over a month ago that I was whining that noone would give me credit.. now I got credit out the wazoo...!!!  thanks to MyFico forums!!

Sorry for the long post but I sure could use some more of your help...

now i didn't think at that time that this would be a problem... 

but now I have maybe too many cards?

First Premier $250 (0 bal) -- should I close it?

CreditOne $200  --  (0 bal) Close it??

Orchard $300 (0 bal) ---  Close?

Macy's - $300 (0 bal)  --  I'll keep it just to have a store line card that can grow with me...

CrownJewelers (0 bal) -- no fees so I just won't mess with it....

DCU $3000 --  gonna keep this one!!

Local Credit Union  $500 (0 bal) --  They will probably up the CL on this no prob and I want to keep it with local anyway.

Sam's Store card (GEMB) $500 --  gonna keep this one I shop there a lot...

Jared's -  $3000 --  just got this one today... should I also get Kay and JR for Util or don't worry about em?  and do I have to use this to get it to report?

CareCredit $1000 (just got my teeth cleaned and put $103 on it today)

I refi'd my car that had 18% interest with DCU for 6.99%!!!!  wow!

and now I am AU on an AMEX with 24k limit!!  I know Fico '08 is imminent but this will help in the meantime!!!

Thanks in Advance!!

[Anonymous]

I would not recommend that you close any open credit accounts unless you are paying an annual fee.  Why loose the history on these accounts??

Keep them open and use them every 3-6 months to keep them active. Never know when you may receive an attractive offer from one of these accounts.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as too many accounts.

[rebuilding]

forgot to mention most of you know that firstpremier, creditone, and orchard all have fees....

[Niki9]

How old are they?

[rebuilding]

about a month give or take a day or two...  (>.<)

[Niki9]

Since they are very new.  I would just close the cards that you do not want (ie. the ones with the fees) and just let the other ones age.

[Anonymous]

close the ones with  annual fees just before fee comes due.  It wouldn't matter about age as closed accounts count in the aging process.  If they are charging you monthly --DUMP it.

Message Edited by casinoannie97 on 05-15-2008 11:03 PM

[Anonymous]

About a year ago, my domestic partner added me to all of his credit cards;  At the time I had a handful of cards including Macys, Orchard, Applied, Wamu and CapOne.  My scores were 620-679.

Now I have over 18 cards and his high balances have become my high balances.  I wasn't on this forum nor did I realize that the credit card companies would report these added cards on my credit reports.

Needless to say, I know we must bring the balances down in order to bring my scores back up but I'm still conflicted on closing versus zero'ing out (we have cl of $45,000 and balances of $25,000). 

As to the department store cards, the "deals" you get by using your card makes it somewhat attractive to hold onto them and keep them at <1%;

As to the cards that have an annual fee, they have the longer credit history will it hurt my score more or is it worth the annual fee to just zero them out and pay the annual fee for another year or so.

I want to buy a house by the end of the year, my DTI is 22% but my scores are 563, 572 and 633.  What do you think my best option is, assuming we pay down everything by another $10,000 in the next six months.  Close or just zero and snip, snip?  Will the number of open accounts keep me from qualifying?

[marty56]

Pay down CareCredit to below 90,  Yiu need to have 1 card show a small (<9) balance,