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My sister told me to stop closing old credit cards and I finally listened
I was talking to my sister last week about my credit score. It had dropped 20 points and I could not figure out why. I told her I had just closed a store card I had not used since 2018, thinking it would clean things up. She looked at me and said, 'Vera, that card is 15 years old. You just cut your credit history by a huge chunk.' I always thought having fewer cards was better, but she explained that the length of your credit history is a big part of your score. That old card, even with a zero balance, was helping me. I felt so silly. I had been doing this for years without knowing the real impact. Has anyone else seen their score drop after closing an old account they forgot about?
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jakewhite4d ago
Oh man, it can even hurt you if you try to open a new card later. Some lenders get nervous if they see you closing accounts right before applying.
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leehall4d ago
Yeah, that's a super common trap to fall into. It feels so right to close stuff you don't use, like you're being responsible. The real kicker is how it can mess with your credit use ratio too, not just the history length. If that old card had a high limit, closing it makes your total available credit smaller, so any balance you do carry looks way bigger percentage-wise. It's like a double whammy that nobody really explains.
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