Mrs Micah has tagged me for Single Step Personal Finance Challenge. She is challenging people to take one small step towards financial stability by making your financial system more organized or better. Personally she is updating her information for automatic debit to World Vision so she can close her old checking account. At the end of the post she tags me to name a small step.
So what can I do to make a small step? I think it’s time to close a couple of credit cards. Laziness has caused me to throw aside a few different credit cards which I don’t really need or have even used. Some I got a decade ago in college. I’m not even sure what the card numbers are, but I know I still apparently have them. So I guess I’ll attempt to dreg up cancelling at least 1 credit card this week.
And to tag people, FabulouslyBrokeintheCity, WideOpenWallet, GetRichSlowlyorDieTrying, Needtobedebtfree, and NoDebtPlan.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Mrs. Micah // Jul 22, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Sounds like a great idea! Don’t forget to weigh which ones you should keep open to keep up the credit score. Generally the oldest is the best choice.
2 CB // Jul 22, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Careful! (To elaborate on what Mrs. Micah said..) That oldest one you got in college might be propping up your credit score. Credit scores favor credit that you’ve had the longest, as it establishes your credit history length. If your oldest card is 10 years old, and your second oldest is 5 years old, eliminating the oldest one will reduce your credit history length from 10 to 5 years, which will negatively impact your score. I don’t see any harm in keeping them open.. just be careful not to open up too many newer lines of credit. If your older cards don’t have perks and that’s why you prefer to open up new lines of credit, why don’t you make your “single step towards financial stability” be to call those CC companies and have them establish perks onto your older cards so that you’ll want to use them, rather than to cancel them.
4 Todd the Bod // Jul 23, 2008 at 10:38 am
I was unsure whether or not to cancel 3 old store cards I had (and hadn’t used in probably 10 years). Finally decided to do it. When I called all 3 had already been closed due to inactivity. So chances are they may already be closed but I say go for it. People say it may affect your credit score, which may or may not be true, but having cards out there you don’t keep track of isn’t really a good idea either.
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