Canceling your oldest credit cards (specially if they have no irregular payment histories) is seriously going to damage your credit score.

However, I guess for people who are still learning how to manage credit, it’s probably the lesser of two evils to remove the temptation and close the account.

I think many people just sign up for cards to get the initial savings and before they know it they have more cards than they need. The same for bank accounts – you move, or have a different need, find a better interest rates, etc. This post is all about simplification.

I don’t think 3 mutual funds is too much if they are in different sectors.

I think this is a general rule of thumb, but not hard and fast. The last car I bought, I used a large down payment, and included the trade in value of my car. For a 4 year loan, my payments were around $160/month, but I paid the car off in less than a year. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t overextend myself by paying it off all at once. I think the thing to remember is to be realistic in your purchase, and do your best to pay it off more quickly than the loan calls for.

This post is a guest post written by Brip Blap, and I think he did a very good job. I agree that keeping credit accounts open can help your score, but I think the point he was making was to close unnecessary accounts to simplify life. Due to their extremely high interest rates, I agree that store cards are pretty much worthless – unless you pay them off every month.

1. Cancel credit cards: Why? If there are no annual fees, why not keep the cards open? It’s good for your credit rating. Closing accounts is not. Having only one major credit card is not a good idea at all. You should have two at the very least, probably three, four, or more. Just keep the balances low and you’ll keep on getting more credit. Pay the bills on time, don’t use them, and your credit score will go through the roof. Closing account is a horrible, destructive idea.

I also don’t agree that you have to be “smarter than Warren Buffett” in order to actively trade. Why? You don’t need to be the best in the history of the world. Zecco.com lets you trade for free. If you like doing it, why not?

Most of the rest of the advice was 100% solid, but #1 was 100% wrong.

But I’d also like to hear about how one can be convinced into having a million separate cards, banks, accounts and all? Imagine the diversity of fees, rates and all that must be paid when that happens!! And I thought owning 3 mutual funds was already a little Management Expense crazy!