Lots of people seem to have lots of opinions about credit cards. For me, I am super pro credit card. I always pay off my balances. So far I’ve never struggled with too much impulse buying (I joke about the candles… it can get a bit excessive, but it is under control).

I recognize this may not be true for others, so search your soul well before you go down the credit card path.

I also watched my mom make reallllllll bad choices with them my whole life and be a very good lesson in what not to do that I took to heart.

So for me, credit cards are ok.

I thought that they would actually be extra helpful down the road when I tried to buy a house, because my use of credit cards, starting with my first one I opened during college orientation, has helped my raise my credit score to over 800 (though we all know by now that my high credit score has been of zero use on the mortgage hunt).

Careful credit card churning has saved me several thousands of dollars in travel fees for vacations to places like New Orleans, Prague, Hawaii, Iceland and many other little trips.

CreditKarma helpfully told me that I have 9 currently open accounts. This, I feel is too many, but as I’m still hoping to buy a house someday soon-ish, I have to leave it alone right now. I don’t think it would be smart to close any accounts right now.

This brings me to a fun note, if you’ve been churning, make sure to consider your house buying, car buying – anything effected by your credit score – plans when signing up for the cards. Not because of the hit you get from a credit inquiry (which is minimal) but from the real hit you get when you close the card and your available credit drops by several thousands of dollars.

Usually I don’t care that much but at the moment, not an option. And because it’s not an option, I realized I have two cards I’ll probably be paying the annual fee on this year (approx.. $200) to just leave my credit score alone.

And because my home buying journey has been so fraught, I also feel like I can’t open any cards to churn because of the combination of it would be unwise to add extra inquiries and also if I’m still looking in like a year, I’ll get hit with all the annual fees.

Another fun thing about credit cards – I remember being told early on to make sure I regularly charge at least something small on each one and I have to say, I failed at that. Like… a lot. Of those 9 cards listed above, there are only two I use regularly.

Until this year, nothing had ever happened. Enter the pandemic and CapitalOne, for reasons I don’t fully understand, decided to cut down my available credit on one of my cards by $5,000. I hadn’t used the card in years, but still, I have two other CapitalOne cards that I have also neglected that were left alone. It doesn’t make a lot of sense and was a little like a customer service kick in the teeth during a rough time. Thanks, CapitalOne, it won’t be forgotten.

On that note, I’ve now made it a goal to charge some little thing on each of my cards this month. So heads up to you, if you don’t usually use your cards (and I mean for months or years at a time), now might be a good time to pay for a tank of gas or some groceries with your backup card.

And if you are cleaning up your accounts, make sure you never close that oldest card, because length of credit history matters and that makes that card worth keeping. If you are opening your first credit card ever, you might want to make sure it has no annual fee so you can keep it forever.

What have you learned about credit cards over the years?