Unpopular opinion: cutting up credit cards is a bad first step for most people

I know everyone says to freeze them or chop them up, but I tried that twice and it backfired both times. First time in 2022, I cut up my Discover card and then had to order a replacement a week later when I needed to rent a car for a work trip. The second time I did it last March and it actually hurt my credit score because my utilization ratio changed. So instead of getting out of debt, I was just using my debit card for everything and ran out of cash faster. What finally worked for me was keeping the cards but hiding them in a drawer I taped shut, and setting up a strict $200 monthly cap on them. Has anyone else found that going cold turkey on cards made things worse before you found a better system?

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the_julia4d ago

Totally feel you on this. The cold turkey method sounds good in theory but real life gets in the way real fast. I did the same thing with my Amazon card after a bad spending month, and then ended up paying for groceries with a debit card that overdrew my checking account. That was way more stressful than just keeping the card and putting a limit on it. Your taped drawer idea is actually genius, I might steal that.