How many credit cards should I have?
Is your wallet fat with credit cards and your mailbox stuffed with statements? If you think having so much credit will help you build a good credit rating, think again. Having more than 2 or 3 credit cards may actually hurt your credit rating, according to Maxine Sweet, vice-president for Consumer Education at Experian, one of the credit bureaus that provides credit reports on consumers to businesses. Sweet says that having a minimal number of cards but using them in a steady but judicious manner is all that’s needed to build a good credit rating. Having too many cards may result in denial of credit if you already have a big credit debt. Even if you don’t, the amount of available credit may cause potential creditors to turn you down. So trim back to two or three cards at the most. Source: Odious task #4 -juggling credit cards. (1998, January). Forecast 98, 92. Written by: Sandra McKinnon, Consumer & Family Economics Specialist, University of Missouri Extension Cynthia E. Crawford, Ph.D
Many borrowers wonder whether they should have more or less credit cards than they currently have. On the one hand, a borrower may want to have as many cards as possible in order to be able to access as much cash as is available in case of an emergency. On the other hand, a borrower may be concerned that having too many cards affects credit scores and makes it difficult to keep finances organized. People at both extremes of the spectrum may find that they have credit problems resulting from the number of credit cards that are issued to them. So what is the right number of credit cards to possess? The number of credit cards that is right for any one given person can differ greatly from what is right for his neighbor. For example, lets take a single mother who is making just enough money to pay her bills. She may find that one or two cards is enough to give her access to the extra money she needs in a crunch without making it too tempting to go crazy on her cards. On the other hand, lets
