If you think you might use a card, keep it. If you don’t think you’ll ever use a card, close it! Very simple. Doing things or not because of the credit score implications is like buying something for the tax write-off. The benefit of either is on the order of 1/10th of the waste of doing something you don’t need to do. If you pay your bills on time and have income that’s generally accepted as proportional to the amount you wish to borrow, you will get a good loan rate!

For instance, I have a card right now that gets me airline miles and annual companion tickets (important with 2 children). My wife opened up a second account with them (and pays a separate annual fee) not because of the 20,000 bonus miles (enough for a roundtrip ticket worth $700), but because of the second annual companion ticket. Guess what? We left that card in the envelope it came in and filed it. Will I ever use that card? Maybe to buy my next car (and then pay the bill that month), but otherwise, no. I have no idea what the limit is on it, and I don’t care. It’s probably high because we have good credit and income. As for the card we had before these 2 airline cards? Well, we canceled that one because we have plenty of available credit. Did it hurt my score? Who knows. I didn’t need the card. Done. I even have a retail credit card. Why? Because my wife likes to buy almost all her clothes from one brand of store and the reward equates to 4% cash back. Mismanaged, that award could induce more unnecessary spending, but wives don’t do that, do they?