If you are familiar with the complex world of credit cards you may be familiar with the term sock-drawering. Sock drawering is the practice of storing certain credit cards that you don’t use all that often (ever), but want to keep open. We keep the cards open because of a certain benefit the card offers or because it’s one of our older card accounts. By doing this we help our credit score by increasing the average age of accounts, a metric that most card churners have a hard time keeping up with.
Anyway, when you have these cards that you don’t actually intend on using, you have to put them in a safe place. So, for safekeeping, you put them in your sock drawer and forget about them. Now, sock drawering should only be done for cards without annual fees since you don’t want to pay huge annual fees for a card you don’t get any value from. However, I have 2 annual fee cards in my sock drawer now (Marriott Bonvoy and United MilagePlus Explorer) that carry annual fees. I am comfortable putting those two cards away as they provide benefits that, without any spend, outweigh the annual fee.
Keeping Sock Drawered Accounts Active
One of the issues with sock drawered credit cards is that you often forget about them. With that, sometimes inactivity can actually negatively impact your credit score. See, lenders may consider unused accounts a sign that you can’t responsibly use the credit lines you’ve opened. So, it’s important to use your sock drawered credit cards every now and then.
Also, some credit card issuers will actually close inactive accounts after so many months of inactivity. For example, a few days ago I received an email from Bank of America telling me just that. I have a Bank of America Cash Rewards card that I’ve had open since 2010. This was my first credit card account, so keeping the account open and active helps my credit score. However, I don’t derive any value from the card so it sits in my sock drawer.
Well, it seems after 24 months of inactivity Back of America will actively close inactive accounts. In the email from Bank of America I was told that if I don’t use the card within the next two months that the bank will close my account. I don’t want that to happen so I went out and purchased a pack of gum on the card to keep the account open.
A Nice Reminder To Use Sock Drawered Accounts
Back when I lived in Chicago I lived in a neighborhood with about 4 or 5 different convenience stores. There were a few bodegas, a Walgreens, a CVS, etc. So, every few months I’d head out on a short walk with 4 or 5 of my sock drawered credit cards to keep them active. I’d go store to store buying a drink, candy bar, or gum just to keep the account active. Then, I’d walk back home and put the cards right back.
Clearly since moving to New York I haven’t been keeping up with this practice. So, this email served as a friendly reminder to get out there and keep certain accounts active. This past weekend I did just that. I got in the car with all of my inactive cards and bought a few things to keep the cards active.
Another way of keeping cards active is to link certain recurring purchases to them. If you have recurring (non-bonus) spend, linking them to an otherwise inactive card is a great way to keep old card accounts active.
Final Thoughts
The one thing you absolutely don’t want happening is for a card issuer to close a sock drawered credit card without your knowledge. Closing card accounts has a minor negative impact to your credit score, but could have a larger impact if it’s a very old card account. Likewise, a reduction to available credit could also negatively impact your credit score.
So, my two recommendations from this experience is to keep certain email notifications on from card issuer accounts and to use any old cards you may have. Yes, the emails are annoying, but having them on saved me from having my account inadvertently closed next month!
