Is it bad to have 5 credit cards, with around $700.00 on each. If so what should I do ?

Question

I was thinking do a balance transfer on all of them to the newest one which has no intrest rate and free balance transfers. Not close the other ones leave about $100.00 on each. I just don't want to mess up my credit.

Answer 1

credit cards are bad, but if you cancel them it is worse! your credit will go down the moment you cancel. keep them open but do not use them. If you have cards that have a yearly fee on them or a service charge than call the company and try and get it switched off sometimes they will do that for you.

Answer 2

DON'T LEAVE DEBT ON YOUR CREDIT CARDS.

It does not hurt your credit score to pay your cards off every month. It may make credit card companies less eager to give you new cards, because more than anything they love a sucker. But that's the worst that can happen.

What you need to do is stop buying stuff you can't afford.

Other than that, yes, the balance transfer thing is a good idea. But transfer the WHOLE balances. Then once you've done that, get rid of any cards with terrible rates or terms. And don't forget to tell them why.

edit: Canceling cards CAN be bad. Canceling them all at once is probably not a good idea. But my score didn't take much of a hit when I very spitefully canceled my Chase card (for randomly changing my billing due date so they could hit me with late fees 2 months in a row, then lying about it, and getting condescending when I called them on their bullshit).

Pick out the worst ones, and dispose of them one at a time.

Answer 3

As long as you are making payments on them, your credit is fine.

The problem is the interest rates on those cards - the average credit card has a 20% rate or higher, meaning that even if you make the minimum payment on each, you will never pay them off.

If your new one has a 0% interest rate, then you can save a lot of money by transferring the others to it, but chances are that 0% rate is only introductory and will go WAY up after the first couple of months, or whatever the introductory period is.

Don't leave $100 on the other cards if you can avoid it, otherwise the interest will build up - pay them completely off, but don't cancel them - they will help your credit.

Make it a priority to make the biggest payment you can afford on your credit cards, sacrifice unnecessary expenses - get them paid off, and NEVER use them again.

If you buy a $20 shirt on a credit card, by the time you pay interest, you will end up paying over twice that for the shirt. Just buy what you can afford, or save up for stuff instead.

Answer 4

If you carry a balance on the card, then when you purchase something else they start charging you interest. If the card doesn't have a balance then you have usually about 30 days grace period that they don't charge interest. So pay them all off, and then just keep them, but dont use them. You can cut up the cards, if you want but leave the account open.

You can also start using a debit card, that will also help with the interest you are paying out. Good luck with it.

Answer 5

for starters, YES! this is very bad. this is a textbook example of bad money management.

what should you do?
cancel the cards and pay them off.

the goal is to spend as little money as possible. If this keeps up, the debts increase with the interest rates and soon you will end up homeless.

Answer 6

Pay off all of them and then cut up all but one and only use it in extreme emergencies. I have only ever had one in my entire life and they keep calling me telling me I can raise my limit and I tell them to leave it at $200. This keep me from getting into trouble.

Answer 7

YES! Horrible idea!!!! Pay them off and cut them up asap! You will feel better trust me!! I got kinda deep with them and im glad I only have one for emergencies now!

Answer 8

Pay them all off.