Should we close our store cards?

[Deleted]

DH and I are snowballing our CC debt, and we'll be completely CC debt free next October. The only debt we'll have after that are our student loans, which is PLENTY! My question is, should we close some of the CCs?

The debt is on 3 store cards and 2 major CC (Citicard and Capitol One). Neither of our major CCs are points card or get rewards.

[rosiedozie]

Are you interested in using a credit card for monthly expenses (paying off in full each month) for either rewards points or cash back?

Even if the answer is no, I would keep at least 1 for traveling.

[Deleted]

Yeah, we want to keep the major CC's for travel, and for monthly expenses and then pay them off every month. After we finish our snowball, we are going to try to negotiate rewards and cash back.

[rosiedozie]

Do you shop a lot? My H and I don't spend much money on home goods or clothes, so we've never seen the benefit of having a store card. However, if you're spending $200 each month at Macy's then it's a different situation.

[Deleted]

No, not really. I don't think we even shop at the different stores monthly. They're more like cards we got in college because we could, and are finally being adults and paying them off.

[Deleted]

Close 'em down. They usually have terrible rates and no rewards.

[ellipses84]

I would close the store cards if you aren't going to be having your credit checked for anything like buying a house or car or refinancing any time soon. You could also call your credit card company and see if they can upgrade you to a rewards card or, if you are comfortable with it, raise your limit so your available credit doesn't go down with the closed cards.

[MixedBerryJam]

I thought the general rule of thumb was not to close a card, but just to stop using it (to keep the actual-debt to available-creit ratio attractive). And also to keep your oldest cards open, even if you're not using them, for the history (I am assuming the history is generally positive).

ETA: also assuming no annual fees, which is generally the case with store cards

[satama]

Aug 27, 2012 16:24:14 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Close 'em down. They usually have terrible rates and no rewards.

Unless you have a Target card ITA. The Target 5% off is a pretty good perk as long as you pay it off each month. I have several store charges that I use for coupons or discount but all are paid in full each month. If you are just getting out of CC debt I would not trust myself to do that and would cancel them.