I just canceled one of my credit cards so I can pay it off, was that a good or bad move?
I have 4 credit cards with a total of $5,400 in debt. I just recently canceled my Visa card because when ever I pay alot off my sticky fingers will charge it to the max again. I wanted to know did i just make a very bad move. I do have my other 3 credit cards open and have not been using them for the past 2 months while I pay them off.
Tags: canceled, Cards, Credit, Good, Just, move
Cancel them all except the one with the lowest amount you can spend. Why do you need 4 credit cards? Do you have any idea how much money in interest you just give to these companies? They love people like you.
Take your money back and don’t make them rich. Pay them off and stop using them.
I work at a mortgage company and the worst thing you could do is cancel all of them. What I suggest you do is pay them off, shred them, but keep the accounts open and current. Everytime you eliminate one of the cards your credit score will go down. If you apply for a mortgage of auto loan you have to prove that you have a good history with paying debt…If all the accounts are closed then you have no history.
do not cancel your credit cards… your credit score grows with the credit available to you comparing to the amount of money spent…
I have 4 credit cards, but use only one… the rest of them is on 0 and shredded…..
if you can not help yourself and use them all the time, get rid of the card, but keep the account….
Learn from the experts. Whenever someone goes to a financial consultant and they have a credit spending problem, they usually will cut the spender’s credit cards so that they will be unable to use them, so doing so is a good idea!
Pay close attention to what you spend, what you can pay and what you shouldn’t charge. Just because you have credit cards doesn’t mean that you can buy anything you want. Learn to save money to get the things that you want because in the long run, you may end up in even more debt and unable to pay your minimun payments, which would put you at a bigger financial strain than being someone who has to save money to buy something. Then you begin to be someone who can’t buy or even charge anything (because of a rising minimum payment and APR rate) because you have to make credit card payments.
The more credit you have that is not being used the better. In my opinion you should have kept the card open, and not charge anything else on it (unless you have the cash to pay it off at the time that you charge it) I know that this method seems backwards, but if you do not have the cash for it, then you cannot afford it. Credit cards can be an excellent tool if used properly.
For example if you have 10,000 in credit over 4 cards, but you only have 1,000 charged, you have a relatively low amount of money borrowed. if you have all 10,000 borrowed, then you obviously do not have enough to pay off 10,000 in debt so why would they want to loan you any more money. I hope that the previous statement did not confuse you any.
The amount of unused credit that you have, and your debt to income ratio is important especially if you want more favor when applying for a home loan.
The problem is your inability to control your impulse spending. Once you overcome that, everything else will take care of itself. It sounds like you might be on the right track, so be diligent. Being out of debt is fun.
If possible move the balances of all the cards to one card so you are not paying interest 3 times over. Cancel 3 (I too suggest this since you also admit you have sticky fingers. Good for you that you are able to admit that!) and remain with the one where you transferred the balances too. If you were to add up the A.P.R.’s on all the cards you owe money on I wouldn’t doubt you are paying over 30% in total per month. Good luck to you!
This was a bad move. If you are trying to improve your credit score, you need to have open accounts that reflect on time payments and ratio of credit used to credit available. This shows that you are capable of owning a credit card and the restraint of using it for miscellaneous shopping sprees.
bad move
never cancel a cc unless you have like 10 others and dont really need it because it will reduce your fico score to have too many credit lines open………..you should have “lost” or shredded the cc so you wont use it.
K guess I am gonna come in with a differnt point of view….well having the credit at your diposal for emergencies is good but you have lots of cards. Your obviously can’t control the spending on at least one card….so you cut it off but I will lay money on it now that you did this you’ll use the other.
K here is one school of thought….if you have a credit limit on say three cards of 15000 with payments of 300/mnth and evaluate what 33% of your income is (So you go for say a mortage) they take your available credit with max payments and your income and take the combined total of payment room to see what you can afford for mortgage payments so that they know you can pay it back. In other words unused credit is considered in the fact of affordability. But going the flip side you also need to establish a credit rating. That being said I believe if you can manage it. Two credit cards are good to have if you don’t live off them….meaning you have the money in the bank to pay off the balance so you have a good rating every month.
So in your situation I would transfer all to the lowest card….maybe when they have a special on at a low rate cause all payment should be applied to the transfer. Keep in mind that money transfers compound differently than purchases if you read the fine print. I like LOC credit cards myself. They offer a rate of about 8% less but no frills. Then I would get rid of at least one more card and lower your credit on the others. Leave instructions of no increases allowed or you will leave that bank.
Consentrate on paying it down and use cash right now till you change your habits. It is about changing you spending modes and you should be able to take care of this fairly quickly if you apply yourself.