As we spoke before. No more cards for now. Relax and let your scores get higher. If you want to close some. Feel free. They will still report paid as agreed and count on your AAoA's. FICO doesnt care how much credit limits you have. People do. It's how its reported that matters. With 3 cards or 30 cards. Doesn't matter. Close some out and throw the $ into a savings account where it will make $. But you dont want to go below 5 open cards and then have the thin file tag. You have to let the concrete(rebuild) foundation harden and quit stirring the pot eventually.
@Red1Blue wrote:I need advice from experts. I have lot of money in total 8 secured credit cards. Their age range from 2.4 years to 1.2 years. They served their purpose. Some of them have AF. Most likely only 2 cards would gradudate. I am not concerned about the AF and can keep paying the AF and let them age. But these secured cards does not have any benefits or cash back or rewards. Here are my questions and concerns. Please let me know your thoughts.
1. What is the negative impact if I ask them to reduce the credit limit and take some money out and put into a good secured card that has rewards and better benefits. Doing this I am moving limit from some cards to another card. Still my total available balance among all accounts would be same. I pay in full so it does not effect the individual account balance.
2. Would there be any negative impact of I close some accounts and move the cash. The reason I am asking is some secured cards might not allow me to CLD the cards. With them either close it or keep it the way it is. I have to make some choices on them. Is there any negative impact in closing the account VS. leave it the way it is and let the account age for few more years as active account.
3. Any other suggestions as to how to deal with these secured cards. I can leave them the way they or make some changes. Please let me know your thoughts,
Last year after my Chapter 13 was discharged, the first credit card I was approved for was a CapitalOne secured Platinum card with a $1,000 limit. The limit proved unworkable for me as they were holding my frequent payments for upwards of 12 days due to me trigging some kind of an anti-money laundering protocol. I closed the card after less than 7 weeks (but didn't get the refund of my security deposit until more than 2 months later), and went for a high-limit secured card from TDBank; yes, the secured TDCash card has an annual fee of $29.00 (with a prorated refund if/when it graduates), however, offsetting the annual fee is the fact they pay (a small amount of) interest on the security deposit AND the card earns rewards at a flat rate of 1% while secured.
I know lots of folks say those of us who are rebuilding need a minimum of 3 cards, however, I firmly believe my single secured TDCash card with a $5,000 limit opened a lot of doors which wouldn't have been open for me if I'd had a bunch of secured cards totalling to that same credit limit of five-grand. Said another way, in your shoes, I'd suggest closing all but one or two and consolidating the deposits so you have high limit cards to parlay into better unsecured cards down the road.
Epilogue on the closed CapOne secured card; I figured they'd be very unhappy with me given how quickly I closed the card. Apparently not, they preapproved me for a Quicksilver card with a $3,000 limit six months later (which turned out to be my first unsecured card).
@Red1Blue wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:As we spoke before. No more cards for now. Relax and let your scores get higher. If you want to close some. Feel free. They will still report paid as agreed and count on your AAoA's. FICO doesnt care how much credit limits you have. People do. It's how its reported that matters. With 3 cards or 30 cards. Doesn't matter. Close some out and throw the $ into a savings account where it will make $. But you dont want to go below 5 open cards and then have the thin file tag. You have to let the concrete(rebuild) foundation harden and quit stirring the pot eventually.
Thanks @FireMedic1 for your suggestions. I'll follow your advice. No new cards and let the accounts age and start relaxing and start living a peaceful life.
It basically comes down to let your credit work for you. (Future) Rather than you work for your credit. As things get better. So much easier to gain better stuff. Rather simple. You already planted the seed. Let that puppy grow.