What is the optimal number of credit cards to have open at a time? (in relation to credit rating)

I did a search but didn't find anything hitting on this... I know if you have too many CC's open it can lower your credit... have too few and it can lower your credit... what do you guyd think the sweet spot is?

Right now I have 1 CC just in my name with a $5,000 limit, and a shared CC with my mom with a $16,000 limit. I am thinking of getting a 3rd CC to share with my GF to make it easier to cover joint expenses so we could just split the bill each month (lets forgo the danger of sharing credit, I am marrying this girl hehe). Would this additional CC possibly hurt me for extending myself too much and lower my credit? My credit rating WAS like 770 before starting this house purchase, I am scared to see how many credit pulls were performed and how low they dropped it

I never keep a balance on any CC, always paid in full each month. Only other debt is a car loan (about $11,000 left) and am closing on a new house, hence all the new joint expenses

I am 42 yrs old & Hubby is 38. 2 teenagers & 2 decent median jobs.

Last Sept we took our 2nd mortgage approx $22,000.00 and put it on all zero interest credit cards. most of them were 6 mo's plus. To date we have 6 open paid about $11,000.00 and applied for about 6 more w/zero interest. rec'd all of them....here we go again. now we are going to get the remaining 11,000.oo paid within the next year.

Some of the interst rate promotions did drop off on a few cards..just waited a few months paid some interest and applied again for zero %. Doing quite well with it even though you have to be diligent in making big payments. We have no life so most of the extra money goes to paying down the debt...lol and we can put some into savings and still live sort of comfortable.

We had 11 years to go @ 11.25% interest on the second mortgage. Next plan is the HOUSE!!! gonna try to do the same. house has a balance of $28,000.

One more thing, I made sure I paid all the payments on time. Online paymenst is great.

Once the house is paid for we will be able to scream ---
...... I'M DEBT FREEEEEEE !!!!! Then maybe we can have a life.

harmlessbunny said:

<< SUCKISSTAPLES said:

<< there is no optimal #...but you can certainly have more than 1 without worry.

Many lenders like to see 3-5 open trade lines (credit accounts) with good repayment history on your credit report.

your score will be determined by age of accounts, utilization %, etc. Dont be scared to open a few new accounts. In the short term, your score will drop due to the inquiries and new accounts, but as they age it will go back up >>

If enough people were to give all the details in their credit files (with the account numbers deleted, of course) along with their credit score it should be possible to figure out exactly how FICO comes up with their numbers. It would just be a data fitting exercise. >>

That would be really funny if we had enough resources here to replicate the FICO algorithm

no I don't know what my fico score is. I dont check it

My wife and I have 2 (Citibank and Discover). As soon as I can convince my wife to cancel the Discover card, we will have one.