Impact of RMD on credit worthiness
I feel like this has nothing to do with income, and as such RMDs will not really help or harm you. After a person passes, credit card companies are unlikely to collect any outstanding balance.  Debts cannot be inherited, however, assets can be made to stand for debts.  Many assets pass to heirs without the probate process and in some cases all of them pass this way.  This leaves creditors with nothing and having to write off the balance. Even if assets do pass through probate heirs may dispute the creditors.  In that case credit card balances may not be high enough justify hiring a lawyer to fight for payment; or, if they do the judge may be unsympathetic and offer nothing or pennies on the dollar.    The bottom line is that they probably see you, or your demographic, as a poor credit risk and reduced their exposure by lowering your limit.  While that is not what they told you, they probably have to carefully structure what they say to avoid any discrimination claims. "My understanding is that credit card companies are allowed to accept retirement income as part of the income that would qualify you for credit. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau issued a final rule amendment to Regulation Z (the regulations around Truth in Lending Act) in 2013 in response to some of the tightening of credit that resulted from the Credit CARD Act of 2009.  The final rule allows for credit issuers to ""consider income and assets to which such consumers have a reasonable expectation of access."" (Page 1)  On page 75, it outlines some examples: Other sources of income include interest or   dividends, retirement benefits, public assistance, alimony, child support, and separate   maintenance payments.... Current or reasonably expected income   also includes income that is being deposited regularly into an account on which the consumer is   an accountholder (e.g., an individual deposit account or joint account). Assets include, for   example, savings accounts and investments. Fannie Mae explicitly mentions IRA distributions in its Documentation Requirements on mortgage applications.  For them, they require that the income be ""expected to continue for at least three years after the date of the mortgage application."" Lenders can reject or lower your credit limit for just about any reason that they want, but it seems appropriate for you to include your retirement distributions in your income for credit applications." The actual policy will vary based on the specific bank.  But, if I were in your shoes I'd include RMDs in my stated income for credit card purposes.
Credit scores have a huge financial impact on consumers, even though most people don’t know how they are calculated or which bad habits may be driving theirs down. Your credit score is a number on a scale of 300 to 900 that can affect all of your financial decisions, from shopping for groceries to applying for a mortgage. Read on to find out why a good credit rating is so important. 4 Things to Know About Your Credit Score Why it’s important. Throughout your life, you will probably rely on your credit to acquire the items that you want and need but can’t necessarily pay cash for. Each time you buy something on credit, merchants are taking a gamble on you; the bet is "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ten-years-after-subprime-mortgage-crisis-us-credit-card-walden-siew) reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Things have come a really long way since the dark days of the credit crisis, and it&amp;#039;s really flipped completely the other way where now it doesn&amp;#039;t really take great credit to get a credit card.  &gt; MS: This is definitely a case of history repeating itself, but the thing is we don&amp;#039;t know what the tip of the mountain is when it comes to credit card debt, because when credit card debt started to fall in 2008 in the credit crisis, credit card debt wasn&amp;#039;t the central problem that sent us over the edge.  &gt; MS: We really have seen all levels, from folks with less than perfect credit to folks with 800 credit scores spending more, and that has been part of what&amp;#039;s driven up America&amp;#039;s credit card balances to these record levels.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6txd7q/ten_years_after_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis_a_us/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~191596 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **credit**^#1 **card**^#2 **debt**^#3 **really**^#4 **crisis**^#5" There are two very small catches. You have just increased your available credit.  In some cases when you want to make a loan, they will check your available credit against your creditworthiness (your income and credit history). In the short term with a greater credit limit, you may have more difficulty getting a large loan.  On the other hand, your greater credit limit will make you seem more creditworthy (as you have been walking around with the ability to borrow a whole pile and demonstrated the ability to not go bankrupt). The other possible catch is that if something goes wrong and your credit line is maxed (maybe you have a psychotic episode; maybe you give your credit card and pin number to someone who buys a car on you), your liability is larger. If you can maintain spending discipline and don't need every ounce of credit head room right now, neither of these apply.  In the medium to long term, a lower credit utilization and a higher total limit will make you more creditworthy. "The comments section to Dilip's reply is overflowing.  First - the OP (Graphth) is correct in that credit scoring has become a game. A series of data points that predicts default probability, but of course, offers little chance to explain why you applied for 3 loans (all refinancing to save money on home or rentals) got new credit cards (to get better rewards) and have your average time with accounts drop like a rock (well, I canceled the old cards).  The data doesn't dig that deep.  To discuss the ""Spend More With Plastic?"" phenomenon - I have no skin in the game, I don't sell credit card services. So if the answer is yes, you spend more with cards, I'll accept that. Here's my issue - The studies are all contrived. Give college students $10 cash and $10 gift cards and send them into the cafeteria. Cute, but it produces no meaningful data. I can tell you that when I give my 13yr old $20 cash, it gets spent very wisely. A $20 Starbucks card, and she's treating friends and family to lattes. No study needed, the result is immediate and obvious. Any study worth looking at would first separate the population into two groups, those who pay in full each month and those who carry a balance. Then these two groups would need to be subdivided to study their behavior if they went all cash. Not a simply survey, and not cheap to get a study of the number of people you need for meaningful data. I've read quotes where The David claimed that card users spend 10% more than cash users. While I accept that Graphth's concern is valid, that he may spend more with cards than cash, there is no study (that I can find) which correlates to a percentage result as all studies appear to be contrived with small amounts to spend.  As far as playing the game goes - I can charge gas, my cable bill, and a few other things whose dollar amounts can't change regardless. (Unless you're convinced I'll gas up and go joy-riding) Last - I'd love to see any link in the comments to a meaningful study. Quotes where conclusions are stated but no data or methodology don't add much to the discussion.  Edit - Do You Spend More with Cash or Credit? is an article by a fellow Personal Finance Blogger. His conclusion is subjective of course, but along the same path that I'm on with this analysis." Payment history is probably the most significant contributor to your credit score.  Having a solid history of making, at least the minimum, payments on time will have a positive impact on your credit score.  Whether or not this specific transaction means anything to that equation is up for debate.   If you have no credit lines now and 0% for 18 months on a computer makes sense to you, then yes, making this purchase this way and paying on time will have a positive impact on your credit score.  Paying interest doesn't help your credit score.  Repay this computer before the 18 month period ends, then be sure to pay your balance in full every month thereafter. I have heard that it is better for your credit score to pay them down over time. Will it make much of a difference? I have never heard that, however, the financial institutions (who are charging you an amount of interest which was at one time in the not so distant past classified and punishable in state criminal codes) really enjoy you thinking that way. You are clearly capable of doing the math yourself. While I don't know the exact numbers, I am totally confident that you will find in about 5 or 10 minutes (if that long) that eliminating debt of any kind in your life will pay an immediate return that beats the great majority of other investments in terms of risk/reward. After the immediate financial return, there is a quieter, subtler, and even greater long term benefit. Basic principle: Highest Rates First Perhaps this decision could be considered slightly less important than deciding not to smoke during your youth; but I would put it as a close second. You are already in a position where you can see the damage that your prior decisions (about financial debt) have produced. Run the clock back to the time in your life when you were debt free. Now, pay off that debt with the big check, and start from zero. Now, turn on your psychic powers and predict the same amount of time, in the future, with the same amount of money (don't even try to adjust for inflation; just use flat dollars) WITHOUT losing the money which you have given to the financial institutions during this previous part of your life. Do you now see why the financial institutions want you to think about slowly paying them off instead of waking up tomorrow without owing them anything ? There were several areas where the mortgage and car loan have affected your credit.  The mortgage had the following impacts, The car loan (purchased shortly after the house) had the following impacts, You did not mention your payment history, but since you had an 800 prior to the house purchase, we can assume that your payment history is current (nothing late). You did not mention your credit utilization, but you want to keep your utilization low (various experts suggest 10%, 20% and 30% as thresholds).  The down payment on the house likely drained your available funds, and replacing the car may have also put stress on your funds.  And when you buy a house, often there are additional expenses that further strain budgets. My guess is that your utilization percentage has increased.  My suggestion would be to reduce your utilization ratio on your revolving accounts.  And since you have plenty of credit lines, you might want to payoff the car. Your Chase card has a good age, which helps with age of credit, and though you will find experts that say you should only have 2-4 revolving accounts (credit cards), other experience shows that having accounts with age on them is a good thing.  And having a larger number of accounts does not cause problems (unless you have higher utilization or you miss payments). You did not mention whether the Chase card has any fees or expenses, as that would be a reason to either negotiate with Chase to reduce or eliminate the fees, or to cancel the card. Have you checked your credit report for errors?  You can get a free report from each of the three bureaus once per year. I don't think that there is any good way a study can average this and bring a useful result: The core problem is that there are people that will spend more money than they should, if they become technically able to, and the credit card is just one of the tools they abuse for that (similar to re-financing with cash-outs, zero percent loans, etc.).  On the other side, there are people who control and understand their spending, and again, the mechanism of payment is irrelevant for them. Studies measure some mix between the groups, and come up with irrelevant correlations that have no causality. If you think any tool or mechanics got you in financial trouble, think again: your spending habits and lack of understanding or care get you in financial trouble - nothing else. In a world where it is considered cool to 'don't understand math', it is no surprise that so many people can't control their finances. I want to be a bit contrarian here. It may be true that to rebuild credit it helps to have credit, but it's not the most important thing. If your description of your wife's history is correct, the most important thing is to fix her tendency to 'spend out of control', especially on get-rich-quick schemes. She may well be on the way to fixing that, but in those circumstances every source of credit is a temptation to spend. Why put that temptation in her way? Whatever tiny postive effect having a credit card has on her credit score will be wiped out if in six months time she suddenly maxes out that card and can't pay it off. I don't want to play credit counsellor, and you should get some professional advice, but her credit score will improve by itself if she  takes on no new debt, pays off what she has, and cuts up any credit cards she owns. TL/DR  Yes, The David popularized the Debt Snowball. The method of paying low balance first.  It's purely psychological. The reward or sense of accomplishment is a motivator to keep pushing to the next card.  There's also the good feeling of following one you believe to be wise. The David is very charismatic, and speaks in a no-nonsense my way or the highway voice. History is riddled with religious leaders who offer advice which is followed without question.  The good feeling, in theory, leads to a greater success rate. And really, it's easier to follow a plan that comes at a cost than to follow one that your guru takes issue with.  In the end, when I produce a spreadsheet showing the cost difference, say $1000 over a 3 year period, the response is that it's worth the $1000 to actually succeed. My sole purpose is to simply point out the cost difference between the two methods. $100? Go with the one that makes you feel good. $2000? Just think about it first.  If it's not clear, my issue is less with the fact that the low balance method is inferior and more with its proponents wishing to obfuscate the fact that the high interest method is not only valid but has some savings built in. When a woman called into The David's radio show and said her friend recommended the high rate first method, he dismissed it, and told her that low balance was the only way to go.  The rest of this answer is tangent to the real issue, answered above.  The battle reminds me of how people brag about getting a tax refund. With all due respect to the Tax Software people, the goal should be minimizing one's tax bill. Getting a high refund means you misplanned all year, and lent Uncle Sam money at zero interest(1). And yet you feel good about getting $3000 back in April. (Disclosure - when my father in law passed away, I took over my mother in law's finances. Her IRA RMD, and taxes. First year, I converted some money to Roth, and we had a $100 tax bill. Frowny face on mom. Since then, I have Schwab hold too much federal tax, and we always get about $100 back. This makes her happy, and I'll ignore the 27 cents lost interest.)  (1) - I need to acknowledge that there are cases where the taxpayer has had zero dollars withheld, yet receives a 'tax refund.' The earned income tax credit (EITC) produces a refundable benefit, i.e. a payment that's not conditional on tax due. Obviously, those who benefit from this are not whom I am talking about.  Also, in response to a comment below, the opportunity cost is not the sub-1% rate the bank would have paid you on the money had you held on to it. It's the 18% card you should be paying off. That $3000 refund likely cost over $400 in the interest paid over the prior year. FTA  &gt; In late July, the San Francisco-based bank lowered the minimum credit score on these fixed-rate jumbo mortgages to 700 from 720,  For comparison with the bubble years, mortgages were being issued to those with FICO scores under 620. Specific to the inquiries, from my Impact of Credit Inquiries article -    8 is at the high end pulling your score down until some time passes. As MB stated, long term expanding your credit will help, but short term, it's a bit of a hit. "Credit Unions have long advocated their services based on the fact that they consider your ""character.""  Unfortunately, they are then at a loss to explain how they determine the value of your character, other than to say that you're buddies & play pool together so they'll give you a loan. Your Credit History / Score is as accurate a representation of your character in business dealings as can be meaningfully quantified.  It tracks your ability to effectively use and manage debt, and your propensity to pay it back responsibly or default on obligations.  While it isn't perfect, it is certainly one of the best means currently available for determining someone's trustworthiness when it comes to financial matters." Incredible article, tons of data. Thank you!   It does answer the above posters question if you're willing to read through. It provides data with and without 'revolving debt'.  Side note; interesting to see how age and income trend. Debt increasing during the family-middle aged years, and during the peak income earning years.  I'd say you want these credit card debt lower overall and on average; but with the distribution it may be sustainable. This is a great response, thanks. I appreciate Dale Carnegie, Sun Tzu etc, but after reading them I felt they didn't offer anything really specific towards running a business. I've just ordered the personal MBA after reading a bit more on it so thanks for that too. Prince2 methodology looks pretty in depth so that's going on the the 'later' pile for now!