New & looking for advice on my open accounts

[Anonymous]

Hello, I am looking for some advice with my open accounts. Im going to start with the 3 I don't have a need for and have no balance on:
-Comenity/ Victoria Secret - 0 balance w/ $710 available
-Comenity/ Venus - 0 balance w/$500 available
-QVC-0 balance w/$400 available
I've been working on reducing debt to increase my scores. Here are my other cards:
-Dell $5000 cl using 1300 ( plan to pay off card asap wondering whether to close it or keep it open after the fact )
-Chase Disney -$5000 cl using $1400 will keep after PIF
-Capital One -$2250 cl available PIF (oldest card)
-Wells Fargo - $4500 cl using $4200 on 18 months 0 interest (opened 6/18)
I do have a mortgage as well.
I'm in the gardening phase and have no intention of applying for cards anytime soon. I'm wondering what potential effects having those cards staying opened or closing could have on my scores. I understand opening cards but I'm looking for information on effectiveness of closing them.
Thank you for the advice!

[Anonymous]

Closing accounts will not have any impact on your FICO scores.  If you have accounts that you feel have already served their purpose and that you don't have a need to use again, closing them may make the most sense... especially if they are "store" cards that can't be used anywhere you'd like.  I'd definitely keep the major bank cards open, especially your oldest account. 

Paying down your debt is definitely the right way to go and doing so will help your scores.  Your maxed out WF account is probably causing you the most harm, both from an individual card perspective and also from an aggregate utilization standpoint.

[Anonymous]

Closing cards is harmful if there is a balance on them.  So be certain that the card is completely paid off before you even consider closing it.  If you have been paying interest, it's smart to wait an additional month beyond paying it to zero to make sure you have cleared all fees and interest.

If a card is (a) your oldest and (b) older than all other cards by at least a few years and (c) has no annual fees, I'd avoid closing it.  Closing it won't hurt you right away but you'll be a little unhappy when it falls off your report in ten years.

Store cards that you have no use for are often best closed.  The credit scoring models used by the insurance industry don't like them.  Exceptions might be if they help give you a much bigger total credit limit or if they are old.

Closing cards is probably a bad idea if the closure will bring your total number of open cards to three or less, or if the closure will make your credit limit so small that you will have trouble keeping your utilization under 8.99%.

Closing cards is often a good idea when you have to pay annual fees for them.

As you can see, there are good reasons to close and bad, and sometimes a card falls into both categories and you have to make a balanced decision.

Closing a card will not affect your average age of accounts, whether in the short or medium term.

[HeavenOhio]

Welcome, @Anonymous.

I think it makes sense to close the first three cards on the list. Whether you do it now or a little bit later would be up to you.

The scoring impact I see is that without the three cards, you're at 53% overall utilization. With the three cards, you're at 48%. If you close the cards at this time, you'd be crossing 48.9% utilization threshold in the wrong direction. Maybe you want to wait until you're under 48.9% without the three cards. Or maybe you don't care. You'd be back below 48.9% fairly quickly, and those points would come back.

I'd keep the Dell card for the time being because of its limit. Close it if you can replace the limit, either through the addition of a new card or with limit increases on your current cards. There's absolutely no rush to do this, though. And actually, you shouldn't be applying for anything until your balances are much lower.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Hello, I am looking for some advice with my open accounts. Im going to start with the 3 I don't have a need for and have no balance on:
-Comenity/ Victoria Secret - 0 balance w/ $710 available
-Comenity/ Venus - 0 balance w/$500 available
-QVC-0 balance w/$400 available
I've been working on reducing debt to increase my scores. Here are my other cards:
-Dell $5000 cl using 1300 ( plan to pay off card asap wondering whether to close it or keep it open after the fact )
-Chase Disney -$5000 cl using $1400 will keep after PIF
-Capital One -$2250 cl available PIF (oldest card)
-Wells Fargo - $4500 cl using $4200 on 18 months 0 interest (opened 6/18)
I do have a mortgage as well.
I'm in the gardening phase and have no intention of applying for cards anytime soon. I'm wondering what potential effects having those cards staying opened or closing could have on my scores. I understand opening cards but I'm looking for information on effectiveness of closing them.
Thank you for the advice!

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In your case you should leave them open and sock drawer them, because you have significant utilization on other cards, so having the unused credit limits helps your overall utilization a little.

Once you have your utilization down to a very small number then we can revisit.