Too much credit won’t hurt your scores

Dear Liz: We just paid off nine cards totaling $49,000. We are credit card debt free. What should we do with the accounts as we are not going to use them except for a couple (to be paid off monthly) as recommended?

Answer: Congratulations! Whether you paid off the debt over time or received a windfall, you were smart to get out from under this burden.

If you can trust yourselves not to run up more debt, your best option is to leave the accounts open and use them occasionally so the issuers don’t shut them down for inactivity.

It’s something of a myth that too much available credit can hurt your scores. Having lots of available credit is actually a positive factor for your FICO credit scores, the ones used by most lenders, while closing the accounts could hurt your scores.