I’m a simple man so I like to keep things simple. And juggling half a dozen credit cards, trying to manage different points games, where you use which, paying different bills, and how it all affects your credit isn’t simple. And it’s definitely not the way to get rich.

For the record, I rarely use credit. I’ve never had a student loan and I currently have my first mortgage at the age of 44. My first/only car loan was paid off almost 20 years ago. And I have exactly two credit cards shown in this image. According to Credit Karma, my credit score is 774. More importantly, my net worth score is about $5.3 million.

I’m not a fan of putting too much focus on your credit score, but it merits at least doing the basics right. One of the factors that goes into your score is “credit age”. The longer track record of paying your bills you have, the better your score. And for some reason, it only looks at currently open accounts. That’s why you never close your oldest card (unless it has an annual fee, then get rid of it). I use my oldest card to pay all my recurring transactions and nothing else. That puts it at lower risk of getting stolen and having to update the payment option on all my subscriptions.

Leaving my oldest card open with all my subscriptions gives more flexibility to your primary card. You can switch it up without crushing your “credit age” or having to go through updating every saved payment option. My current primary card is the Fidelity Visa. It offers 2% cash back on everything, auto-deposited to my Fidelity account every month. No points. No gimmicks. No worrying about categories, or how to spend points. I like the simplicity because I believe trying to SPEND LESS is what will make me rich, not focusing on jumping through hoops set up by the credit card companies.

ANYWAY, that’s my opinion on credit cards. In general, I don’t talk about them much, because I’d much rather focus on building wealth than credit card games!

As always, reminding you to build wealth by following the two PFC rules: 1.) Live below your means and 2.) Invest early and often.

-Jeremy & Jenn