Ask for credit decrease
"Aside from an annual fee, if any, the card issuer makes money 2 ways, the transaction fee, about 1.5%-2% charged to the merchant, and interest from you if you leave a balance month to month. Obviously, the bank has some cost in processing statements and maintaining your account. If up front you are saying you will not have any chance of providing a certain profit level, they may have no interest in your business. (As you updated.) Other card issuers (almost surely with fees) might. Put the cards on ice. A bag of water in freezer. Don't be so hasty that you ding your report this way. By trashing the history as well as utilization, you may impact your score enough to do some harm if you actually need credit in the near future. I know this is a game with the credit agencies, a ""how good a borrower am I"" game, but it can really impact your bottom line if you don't play along.  In reply to Michael's comment 1/5/15, if I have one card and am budgeted for $1000/mo in spending, in order to keep utilization down to less than 20%, I'd need a line of more than $5000. Even if I ignore utilization, my January spending is $1000, but the bill is cut on the 31st and not due till Feb 25th. So a line of nearly $2000 is required unless you wish to make mid cycle payments on an ongoing basis." I agree with JoeTaxpayer that you will be better off in the end if you can just not use your card you are better off in the long run.  That said if you are determined to get a card you can control go to a credit union or local bank.  Most of them will give you the credit limit you want.  This may provide you with a card that you can make use of but know that you can not go wild.  The down side is most of these will not be reward cards but my local credit union gave me a 7% card where my Chase card is at 18%(was 5% before the changes to credit card regulations). $500 should not have a massive impact on your credit. Why not at the beginning of each month buy a $500 prepaid Visa instead of using your credit card? That way you set a hard limit, but you still have the option of using credit in an emergency.
Except for the fact that canceling credit cards will hurt your credit, either by increasing your utilization ratio or decreasing the length of your credit lines if you cancel the oldest card, which makes it that much harder to get the good interest rates available on other loans. One of your credit reports said this was negatively impacting your credit. You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report once per year from each of the three major credit reporting companies in the U.S. (TRW, Equifax and one other). It is a good idea to check on these anyway, if you have credit accounts.  Get copies from the other two credit reporting companies. See if they also say that your credit is negatively impacted by so many loans, even though the balances are small. If all three credit reporting companies are in consensus about negative effecting your credit, then it is true. If that IS the case, check with your subsidized loan lender about consolidation. If the unsubsidized loans are from the same lender, ask them too. If they're from different lenders, you might want to ask at your bank about getting a debt consolidation loan. You might be able to save money by refinancing (consolidating) the unsubsidized student loans as one loan, maybe even ALL the loans as one loan, particularly if you bank at a credit union. First of all, think of anyone you know in your circle locally who may have gotten a mortgage recently.  Ask him, her, or them for a recommendation on what brokers they found helpful and most of all priced competitively. Second of all, you may consider asking a real estate agent.  Note that this is generally discouraged because agents sometimes (and sometimes justifiably) get a bad reputation for doing anything to get themselves the highest commission possible, and so folks want to keep the lender from knowing the agent.  Yet if you have a reputable, trustworthy agent, he or she can point you to a reputable, trustworthy broker who has been quoting your agent's other clients great rates. Third of all, make sure to check out the rates at places you might not expect - for example, any credit unions you or your spouse might have access to.  Credit unions often offer very competitive rates and fees.  After you have 2-3 brokers lined up, visit them all within a short amount of time (edit courtesy of the below comments, which show that 2 weeks has been quoted but that it may be less).  The reason to visit them close together is that in the pre-approval process you will be getting your credit hard pulled, which means that your score will be dinged a bit.  Visiting them all close together tells the bureaus to count all the hits as one new potential credit line instead of a couple or several, and so your score gets dinged less. Ask about rates, fees (they are required by law to give you what is called a Good Faith Estimate of their final fees), if pre-payment of the loan is allowed (required to re-finance or for paying off early), alternative schedules (such as bi-weekly or what a 20 year mortgage rate might be), the amortization schedule for your preferred loan, and ask for references from past clients. Pick a broker not only who has the best rates but also who appears able to be responsive if you need something quickly in order to close on a great deal. Generally speaking, when you are asked whether you consent to a credit check, what is implied is that your identifying information is shared to enable that check.  Most credit nowadays (credit, mortgage, car lease, even cell phone accounts etc.) is simply unavailable without a credit check. I never give advice but I will now because you are getting poor advice.  I run between 820 and 835 for a FICO score and have for years.  I have a Discover, AMEX, VISA and MC.  I have over 200,000 dollars of credit and I never EVER pay interest.  I pay off the cards every month.  So, does it matter how much credit you have or can you have too much?  NO!  Bank of America gave me 40,000 dollars credit and I don't even have an account with them except the card.  Banks like people who pay their bills on time.  Well, the computers at the banks do.  LOL...DON'T be afraid of asking for more credit.  Your score may drop for two months but that is it.  Good luck with your money I would sit down with the creditors and negotiate smallest amount you can get before agreeing with whatever you have to pay. Think that, for them, it's much more convenient to get way less than $36K than to see you in collections. Needless to say, don't tell them you have to money to cancel off :-) If you want to ensure that you stop paying interest, the best thing to do is to not use the card for a full billing cycle.  Calculating credit card interest with precision ahead of time is difficult, as how you use the card both in terms of how much and when is critical. "Don't use a ""credit repair"" agency. They are scams. One of the myriad of ways in which they work is by setting you up with a bogus loan, which they will dutifully report you as paying on time. They'll pretend to be a used car dealer or some other credit-based merchant. For a time, this will actually work. This is called ""false reporting."" The problem is, the data clearinghouses are not stupid and eventually realize some hole-in-the-wall ""car dealer"" with no cars on the lot (yes, they do physical inspections as part of the credentialing process, just sometimes they're a little slow about it) is reporting trade lines worth millions of dollars per year. It's a major problem in the industry. But eventually that business loses its fraudulent reporting ability, those trade lines get revoked, and your account gets flagged for a fraud investigation. The repair agency has your money, and you still don't have good credit. Bad news if this all goes down while you're trying to close on a house. You're better off trying to settle your debts (usually for 50%) or declaring bankruptcy altogether. The latter isn't so bad if you're in a stable home, because you won't be able to get an apartment for a while, credit cards or a good deal on auto financing.  ED: I just saw what one agency was charging, and can tell you declaring bankruptcy costs only a few hundred dollars more than the repair agency and is 100% guaranteed to get you predictable results as long as you name all your debts up front and aren't getting reamed by student loans. And considering you can't stomach creditors-- well guess what, now you'll have a lawyer to deal with them for you. Anything you accomplish through an agency will eventually be reversed because it's fraudulent. But through bankruptcy, your credit will start improving within two years, the tradeoff being that you won't be able to get a mortgage (at all) or apartment (easily) during that time-- so find a place to hunker down for a few years before you declare."