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After my divorce I found that I had no credit. So, I began building my credit and am doing quite well with it. I started with a secured card with a low limit (under 1K) several years ago.

When my credit was established enough, I was able to get 4 unsecured cards with large limits (10K+). I then was told that I needed multiple types of credit, so I opened a gas card and a large retail store chain card.

I now have 11 cards and was told that multiple cards do more to hurt my credit than help it? They said I was a risk because I could run all of these cards up and leave the debt. It's now been 4 years.

Should I close the small limit cards and keep the larger ones or just leave them as they are? I pay all of them off every month and never carry a balance.

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    Who are the "they" that are telling you first that you need more credit, and then second telling you that you have too much credit? Is it a particular financial website, a financial advisor, a bank that you applied to for credit, or someone else?
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 13:26
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    Do you know what your current credit score is? If so, what is it?
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 13:27
  • 2
    That depends on your country of residence. FICO scores in the USA work different from the Schufa scores in Germany, different from the respective scores in the UK and also different from the scores in India.
    – glglgl
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 14:01
  • @glglgl OP’s profile indicates the U.S.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 16:27
  • Do you need even close to that much credit? Leaving manipulation of your credit score aside if I were you I'd be worried about how much damage someone who stole your identify could do.
    – Eric Nolan
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 17:06

1 Answer 1

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Here are the main components of your credit score:
Payment History: 35%
Utilization: 30%
Length of Credit History: 15%
New Credit: 10%
Credit Mix: 10%

Having more cards would have this impact:

  • Increase your total available credit, which assuming you don't charge up those cards would give you a lower total credit utilization (help)
  • Shorten the average age of your accounts - Assuming they are new cards (hurt)

In the end, you are probably micro-managing your credit score if you are opening more cards just to manipulate your score. Open the cards you need and worry about credit as a secondary concern only if there is a problem. Don't let the cart pull the horse.

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  • Assuming this is for the US, I suggest changing "Amounts Owed" to utilization. up to 30% of score is utilization, which is based on amounts owed but relative to available credit. It does not hurt you to have 50k owed if you have 500k credit limit, but it does hurt if you have 50k owed and a 50k credit limit.
    – Hart CO
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 15:03

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