Average American has 9 credit cards?????? - Page 2

skimommy · 01-30-2008, 06:46 AM

I have not had a job in 5 years and do not have any debt in my SSN except 2 credit cards. One of them has a balance at 0%. Despite the fact that I do not work, I constantly receive offers and they raise my credit card limit. I always have to call and have it lowered.

queenboxtop · 01-30-2008, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAHMto3boys

See this is what I was worried about - but do you cancel ALL of them?? I wouldn't think that would be good either... I don't know. Oh, and did your score go up right away? Or did it take a while??

Keep your oldest cards that shows history and keep a card that is in good standing that is major if the others are store.

We have lots of CC some with nothing on them but they are their anyway. Our score is fine so you might not have to do anything. Just wait and see what they tell you, you don't want to accidently mess up your credit.

christy'smom · 01-30-2008, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAHMto3boys

We're planning on buying a new house anywhere from possibly 3 months from now to a year and a half from now. Does anyone know what's the best thing to do for your credit score?? Go close down half of them - keep 1 card? I don't want to go shut a bunch down and have our credit scores go down, but if we wait till we try to get pre-approved and they say it's bad to have too much open credit then shutting them down then will be worse, right?

Anyone know what we should do???

I am not sure what to do, but can tell you what not to do

: When we bought our first house, a month before closing, DH and I walked into Sears and they were having a huge appliance sale - so with the best of our brains, we opened a Sears card and bought washer, dryer, refrige.... --- the realtor panicked and called us not to open any CC till we closed. We were really wise and arranged delivery after our new house closed

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calimari · 01-30-2008, 10:56 AM

I don't know. Maybe 10. I closed a bunch several years back...

I have Coldwater Creek Visa, Amazon Visa, we have 2 Bank of America cards, Macy's, Lowe's....Parisian...I think we have one thru Costco...A comerica credit card....the citibank one is gone now, and I know we closed Mervyns...we have a Sears card which I think just turned into a regular visa as well.. I think we have one with NW airlines...there are a bunch of them in a pile on my desk at home. Sometimes they expire before I even call to activate them (sitting there for years)....

Cookie2 · 01-30-2008, 11:09 AM

Between hubby and me, not only do we probably have the average, but we're probably helping to push that statistical figure.

I remember one time, I applied for a Visa card and the financial institution sent me two DIFFERENT cards. Yes, two different accounts. I don't know why.

Daisymum · 01-30-2008, 11:56 AM

They aren't all active, but I've had atleast 20. yeah.....

Maman1 · 01-31-2008, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SAHMto3boys

We do have a HUGE amount of open credit - probably like $70,000 or something. We could go out tomorrow and rack up quite a bit!

Obviously this is WAY more than we should ever need, but I've always heard that closing down credit cards will negatively affect your credit score. Of course I've also heard that having a huge credit limit like this isn't really good either since we could go spend it tomorrow.

We're planning on buying a new house anywhere from possibly 3 months from now to a year and a half from now. Does anyone know what's the best thing to do for your credit score?? Go close down half of them - keep 1 card? I don't want to go shut a bunch down and have our credit scores go down, but if we wait till we try to get pre-approved and they say it's bad to have too much open credit then shutting them down then will be worse, right?

Anyone know what we should do???

Don't open any new accounts, but I wouldn't close down half of your old accounts, either. I don't know where the line is, but I know from the past that when we had "only" $25k of available credit and no balances, the "low" available credit was seen as a slight negative on our credit score. It's totally crazy, of course. I don't know where they draw the line between too much and too little, though. Just apparently above 25k.

Samantharae · 01-31-2008, 07:48 PM

I have one. My SO has a Sears, Firestone, Chase, Dell, Capital One.. So that's six.. But then we have ALOT of student loans.. About 40K (IM guessing)... And a personal Loan of 4,000. HOPE TO ALL BE PAIF OFF THIS YEAR.. (excluding the student loans)