Hooray for Home Depot! HD for the save!

[Rich Engelhardt]

David's advice is exactly what I've heard & experienced.

Credit Karma, IIRC, also recommends the same thing - set unused cards aside and let them expire on their own.

I don't pretend to even begin to understand why it's like that. Since having a credit card with nothing on it is in essence an unsecured loan, you'd think that closing any unused ones would help your FICO score.

[Barry McFadden]

Not trying to hijack the thread but it seems to have turned into a credit score debate. I don't really understand the paranoia about credit scores in the US. All the commercials I see about checking your credit score are US based. They talk about things like, if checking your score lowers it or, in this thread, if cancelling a credit card lowers it or missing a payment lowers it. I have never checked my credit score in my life and even though I have misplaced bills like the phone or electric bill and failed to pay them on time I have never been refused a car loan or a mortgage or any other type of credit. These commercials tend to make me believe that people check their credit score daily or wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about it. Is that the case or is it just blown out of proportion by the commercials?

[Bill Dufour]

Back on topic: I would have used a router with a guide bar of scrap wood. have to trim the corners square with a saw or file.
Bill D

[Ed Henderson]

Not trying to hijack the thread but it seems to have turned into a credit score debate. I don't really understand the paranoia about credit scores in the US. All the commercials I see about checking your credit score are US based. They talk about things like, if checking your score lowers it or, in this thread, if cancelling a credit card lowers it or missing a payment lowers it. I have never checked my credit score in my life and even though I have misplaced bills like the phone or electric bill and failed to pay them on time I have never been refused a car loan or a mortgage or any other type of credit. These commercials tend to make me believe that people check their credit score daily or wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying about it. Is that the case or is it just blown out of proportion by the commercials?

I'm not trying to hijack your non hijack but you should know....You may never have been refused a loan but you may have been charged a bit more interest on your loan because of missing the odd payment like a phone bill or electric bill. So if the best rate offered, sometimes under the table, on say a car loan is 3.5% you might have paid 4.5% on the loan and thought you were getting the best deal just because the loan was approved. That's not necessarily the case. Every loan provider has latitude in the interest rate game and every sales org, particularly sellers of items like auto's, get kickbacks on every extra cent they can gouge you for.

So in my humble opinion, keep your payments up to date and watch your credit score because credit rating agencies do not always employ top people at top salary.

[Barry McFadden]

Appreciate your input.... but I don't think that is happening... My line of credit is Prime plus 1/4% which is as low as they offer and we just bought a car and financed it and before I even told the salesman who I was I confirmed the rate with him... It's not as if they did a check and said "your rate will be..."

[Ed Henderson]

Appreciate your input.... but I don't think that is happening... My line of credit is Prime plus 1/4% which is as low as they offer and we just bought a car and financed it and before I even told the salesman who I was I confirmed the rate with him... It's not as if they did a check and said "your rate will be..."

Excellent!

[Rich Engelhardt]

Back on topic: I would have used a router with a guide bar of scrap wood. have to trim the corners square with a saw or file.

Bill - thought about doing just that, but, since the counter top is installed, there wasn't enough room to fit my compact routers (DeWaly 611 & Makita cordless compact) in there. I very briefly considered the Rotozip - but - dismissed that idea. :Last time I tried the Rotozip for something like that it ended badly.

[David Buchhauser]

I mean no offence in any way here David. Are you in the credit reporting or the lending business, or are these your personal observations? I ask because my experience as a Consumer is different than what you've said here. But like I said earlier, I know there are multiple factors involved in how this works.
Fred

"Should you cancel your credit card? Probably not"

"Depending on your total available credit, closing a credit card account with a high credit limit could hurt your credit score, particularly if you have high balances on other cards or loans. ... If you have zero balances, your credit utilization rate is zero, and won't be impacted by the loss of a balance."

"The first question to ask yourself before canceling a card is: Do you really need to cancel it? Or would it be better to just put it away and not use it? Having an available line of credit on a card with no balance always helps your credit score, and it could come in handy in an emergency or if its terms improve in the future.

However, there are two occasions when closing a credit card is called for:

1. You can’t control your spending and need to remove the temptation.
2. You are paying an annual fee for a card you do not use.

In those cases, it makes sense to cancel cards, since they are unnecessarily costing you money."

[Frederick Skelly]

"Should you cancel your credit card? Probably not"

"Depending on your total available credit, closing a credit card account with a high credit limit could hurt your credit score, particularly if you have high balances on other cards or loans. ... If you have zero balances, your credit utilization rate is zero, and won't be impacted by the loss of a balance."

"The first question to ask yourself before canceling a card is: Do you really need to cancel it? Or would it be better to just put it away and not use it? Having an available line of credit on a card with no balance always helps your credit score, and it could come in handy in an emergency or if its terms improve in the future.

However, there are two occasions when closing a credit card is called for:

1. You can’t control your spending and need to remove the temptation.
2. You are paying an annual fee for a card you do not use.

In those cases, it makes sense to cancel cards, since they are unnecessarily costing you money."

Sure looks like you're right David. I looked up creditcards.com and it looks like they have expert background and they dont appear to be an "industry sponsored" site. What they're saying runs contrary to what I experienced, but Im definitely NOT an expert. So, maybe something has changed or my circumstances made a difference. Regardless, thanks for clearing it up and thanks for the info.
Fred

[Rich Engelhardt]

Back on track....

I just saw on the Home Depot site that you can get up to $100 off on a purchase by signing up for HD credit.

[Matt Day]

If HD gave away $100 for free, no strings attached, they’d go out of business. I’m not a CC expert, but signing up for a CC at every place that gives you some kind of sign up bonus can’t be a good idea.

[John K Jordan]

If HD gave away $100 for free, no strings attached, they’d go out of business. I’m not a CC expert, but signing up for a CC at every place that gives you some kind of sign up bonus can’t be a good idea.

I'm sure they are banking on the customer returning and using it. But I wonder what getting multiple cards does for the credit rating.