What is too many credit cards?

[Anonymous]

Asking how many cards are too many is like asking how many felony convictions are too many, it's different for each person.  I have 17 convictions  but my wife only has 5..  Hey, why are you all looking at me?

[Horseshoez]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Asking how many cards are too many is like asking how many felony convictions are too many, it's different for each person.  I have 17 convictions  but my wife only has 5..  Hey, why are you all looking at me?

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LOL, Holy Thread Creep Batman!

• How many speeding tickets is too many
• How many cars is too many
• How many pairs of shoes is too many
• How many cats is too many

Geez, I need to stop now before I get into trouble. 

[FalconSteve]

I'd PC or close any cards with an annual fee, but I keep everything else open personally

[Trini88]

If there's an annual fee and barely any use I'd drop it. I think if someone has over 21 open accounts there is no need for more. I also think if it's to the point where you rotate each month which card to use, you have too many. You have some good higher limit cards, you can drop the low limits if you want, those cards will still report for 10 years. My first card I was a AU on my husbands credit card. I dropped it 2 years ago and it still reports to the credit bureaus in good standing even though when I took myself off of it his usage was 98% smh.

[Anonymous]

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@digitek wrote:

I've closed 12 cards in my life and looking back on it I don't regret closing a single one of them.

I think it is a personal preference really. I know for me I like things slim and trim, if anything in my life stops serving a purpose I will likely try to get rid of it. I just don't like a lot of stuff around in my life that I'm not using.

I think it feels good to drop cards you no longer use, almost as good as getting a new card, but not quite.

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I agree with all of this. If I don't use it I'll close it but I'll try for a pc first if I can try for something I could use.

[wasCB14]

I'm at 19, and got most of them when I was traveling more and not so busy.

They're across six lenders and every lender except Chase sends eBills to Schwab. If not for that, I'd probably be around 10 cards across Amex/BofA/Citi/Chase.

[MrDisco99]

Most normal people would think I have too many cards (18).  I like to keep them open mainly to help with utilization padding.

Moving limits at Barclays is pretty easy, so I've closed my cards with that bank when they've stopped being useful.  I still have the one with the combined limit from all of them.

Same with Amex.  I've closed a bunch of Amex cards to make room for new applications since they have that 4 or 5 card limit.  Combining limits before closing is easy.

I've actually thought about closing my BofA cards just to have one less bank to keep track of and because those cards just aren't useful to me anymore.  I keep them in the sock drawer because of the high limits.  If they decide to cancel me for non-use it's not a big loss.

[Jackrabbits]

Thank you to everyone for posting their advice. Technically, this is my first post. Again thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

[JNA1]

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@Jackrabbits wrote:

Thank you to everyone for posting their advice. Technically, this is my first post. Again thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

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One thing to keep it mind is that if your ratio of cards with balances drop below certain thresholds, you can be dinged a little bit. For instance, if you have 10 cards and have 4 with balances, and you close 5, you'll have balances on 80% of cards instead of 40%. 
This is separate than utilization ratio. 

[Aim_High]

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@Jackrabbits wrote:

... The question is what is too many credit cards? ... 

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Three is too many. 
But a dozen is not enough. 😜 

Yes, depends on who you ask. 
It's all about what you need and feel comfortable managing. 
I have 20 right now and that's really more than I want to keep up with. 
I prefer to avoid store cards and smaller limits to make each card more versatile & useful. 

When I evaluate my wallet, I make a list of my cards and evaluate each by separate attributes (age, credit limit, APR, rewards, Fees like AFs or FTFs, lender diversity, payment network diversity, customer service satisfaction, fraud prevention, tech support like apps & websites, etc.) Cards that lag in multiple areas are easier to identify for cutting.