My uncle told me to put a small purchase on each card monthly and I blew him off for years

Back in 2014, my uncle who used to work at a bank told me to just buy a pack of gum or a coffee on each of my credit cards once a month to keep them active. I thought he was being old school and it didn't matter since I wasn't using the cards. Fast forward to last year when I went to get a car loan and two of my cards got closed by the bank for no activity. That dropped my credit score by about 40 points and I had no idea they could do that. I had to explain to the loan officer why my score took a hit and it was embarrassing. Now I set up a small $5 subscription on each card and pay it off right away. Has anyone else had a card closed on them for not using it?

3 comments

3 Comments

dylan_brown3015d ago

Honestly I read somewhere that banks can close cards with zero activity for like 6 months to a year and it's way more common than people think. Tbh it's one of those things nobody tells you until it screws you up. I remember seeing a thread where a guy lost like 80 points because three cards got shut down at once and he was trying to buy a house. Ngl your uncle was right, it's just one of those boring adult things you gotta do even if it feels pointless. That's why I just throw a cheap monthly streaming subscription on each card and set auto pay.

reese_hayes7115d ago

Laughing at your uncle's advice and then getting hit with a 40 point drop is the universe's way of serving karma cold, huh? Guess those boring adult things actually have some bite to them after all.

blake79214d ago

@dylan_brown30 dropping that knowledge about auto pay for streaming is actually a smart move. I used to think my uncle was just being paranoid about keeping old cards active. Honestly I figured if I didn't use a card for a while, no big deal. But then I watched a buddy of mine lose 30 points out of nowhere because his bank closed a card he hadn't touched in 8 months. That REAL quick changed my mind. Now I got a Netflix sub on one old card and Hulu on another, just to keep them breathing. The boring adults WEREN'T wrong about this one.