Thread: I am the credit card king!

This is my introduction post and my challenge to you all!

First things first. Hi I'm YourFinancesSimplified but you can call me YFS. I run the blog yourfinancessimplified.com.

Enough small talk. Let's get into the pissing contest shall we! The rules are simple you must disclose:

1. Total amount of credit cards
2. Total available credit
3. Utilization rate (Must use last statement balance. I don't care if you Pay in Full)

The people will decide who is the credit card king. I even wrote about it here on my blog I AM THE CREDIT CARD KING. I would love your comments.

WHY I AM KING!

1. 16 credit cards (RAWR)
2. 336,1600 (LIKE A BOSS)
3. 1.76% (Credit Utilization Maverick)

It isn't all about the size of your...... credit available. I like how you were so excited you added an extra zero to your availability.

Granted I can't stake claim to much as a pale-faced green-horn. Although I laugh that with my $8,000 available credit, my FICOs are somewhat comparable to yours. I wonder what the threshold is for too much credit....

YFs I have 2 perfect cards and 1 great card. I also have 2 charge cards belonging to gas.

12,500 available credit.

minimal used on credit.

a lot of my payments tend to be around 6 dollars up to 27.00

I bet my 3 cards are better than your 16.
YfS you are not credit card king.

That's a lot of cards, YourFinancesSimplified. Can you list them?

Originally Posted by zapper_89

It isn't all about the size of your...... credit available. I like how you were so excited you added an extra zero to your availability.

Granted I can't stake claim to much as a pale-faced green-horn. Although I laugh that with my $8,000 available credit, my FICOs are somewhat comparable to yours. I wonder what the threshold is for too much credit....

You're absolutely correct. But...

Here is the kicker! The credit algorithm only cares about the credit utilization percentage in determining your credit score. So if you had a credit card with a limit of $10,000 and only used $176. You and I would be considered equals according the credit algorithm. Why? Because we have the same credit utilization percentage.

($176 / $10,000) * 100 = 1.76% credit utilization.

But, say you had an emergency and you had to use your credit card to purchase something for $2,000.00 while you had your existing balance of $176. Your credit utilization would not be 1.76% any longer but 21.76%!

($2,176/$10,000)*100 = 21.76% credit utilization.

Under the same scenario, if I had to purchase something for an additional $2000.00 on top of my $5920.14 balance. My credit utilization score would be 2.35%

($7920.14 / $336,100) * 100 = 2.35% credit utilization

Now we are not considered the same credit risk in the eyes of the credit report algorithm even though we just experienced the same emergency. My credit score will stay relatively, your credit score would most likely drop significantly.

Originally Posted by Money card

YFs I have 2 perfect cards and 1 great card. I also have 2 charge cards belonging to gas.

12,500 available credit.

minimal used on credit.

a lot of my payments tend to be around 6 dollars up to 27.00

I bet my 3 cards are better than your 16.
YfS you are not credit card king.

Challenge Accepted

Originally Posted by Code of Honor

That's a lot of cards, YourFinancesSimplified. Can you list them?

Don't mind if I do.

American Express Blue Cash - 25k limit
American Express Blue - 25k limit
BOFA Visa - 50k Limit
BOFA Cash Rewards- 1.3k Limit
BOFA Visa - 50k Limit
Best Buy Credit Card - 15k limit
Capital One Venture Card - 30k limit
Chase Freedom - 20k limit
Chase Slate 2.5k limit
Citibank Platinum - 7.3k limit
Pentagon Federal Credit Union Cash Back Visa - 50k limit
Pentagon Federal Credit Union Cash Back Visa - 50k limit
PNC BANK Cash Back Visa - 7.5k Limit
PNC BANK Cash Back Visa - 7.5k Limit
PNC BANK Points Visa - 7.5k Limit
PNC BANK Flex Visa - 7.5K limit

Originally Posted by zapper_89

It isn't all about the size of your...... credit available. I like how you were so excited you added an extra zero to your availability.

Granted I can't stake claim to much as a pale-faced green-horn. Although I laugh that with my $8,000 available credit, my FICOs are somewhat comparable to yours. I wonder what the threshold is for too much credit....

I haven't hit a ceiling yet. I took 150k out of my 3 homes last month and refinanced my personal residence to take advantage of the low mortgage rates in September. So if I haven't had an issue thus far I won't have one in the future :-). Would I be getting more cards? Heaven's no. I don't need too. Most of my cards have ridiculous limits as is. I do like the flexibility I have with monster limits.

YFS my 3 cards are Discover original black (5,500), capital1 Venture Gold Visa (5,000) salespeople that travel on business use this card. Then I have an American Express Green personal card, another used for business.

As you can see no Mastercard being it's a bank card like Visa, yea I know some stores like Bed bath and beyond use their logo. not too much credit that just hurts a person like you YFS.
3 different credit cards, 3 different companies.

YFS, what's the point?

I don't mind a good pissing contest but yours seems pretty dumb!

Three cards because that's all I need. AMEX platinum, just checked my spending ability, I can go spend $60,000 today if I want. My Visa signature card has a limit of $35000. I have another hotel card with $12,000 limit. I guess I'm only 3/$107,000.

But I also have a visa card that acts like a debit card but is connected to a HNW private account. I can spend well over $100k on that today. Also have equity of (conservatively) $750,000 in homes vs about $250k in mortgage balance.

Utilization? Always pay in full, but just paid $8000 to the AMEX card for spending in the last month. So I guess that is 8/107 or a little higher than yours. But utilization is not a sticky number. Mine would be almost zero now, plus, it doesn't make any sense if you don't have limits as most of my cards don't. (Or rather, spending is approved on a basis more complicated than a fixed number.

But what exactly are you king of? With $300k+ of "available" credit you are fooling yourself. If you ever tried to use that in a short period it would be gone! You're more of a sucker than a king.