I have old credit cards I don’t use any more.  Should I cut them up?

No.  Get a safe, or a safety deposit box, and stick them in there. Be sure to check the statements occasionally to be sure nothing gets charged to the cards, but otherwise you can forget about them.

Why bother?  Because closing those accounts can actually lower your credit score!

One thing that affects your credit rating is the average age of your credit accounts; higher is better.  Someone whose average account is ten years old is considered to be a much better credit risk than someone whose account is ten months old.

When you close your accounts, especially your oldest ones, you reduce the average age of your credit lines.  (Assuming it wasn’t one of your newest lines of credit) Keeping that account open also decreases the ratio of credit used to credit available (you have more credit that you aren’t using) which implies that you’re a better credit risk because you’re further from reaching your maximum amount of debt.