According to Bankrate.com most Americans carry five to 10 credit cards, but how many cards should you own?

That depends on how much you spend and how much you pay off.

Many credit agencies say the more cards you have the bigger the risk of damaging credit.

According to Consumer Reports most people can survive on just one or two major credit cards.

VISA, MasterCard, American Express or Discover are accepted by all most all merchants.

Beware of opening a lot of store credit cards. You may be tempted to open an account to get a discount on purchases, but interest rates on store cards tend to be high. Sometimes rates can be over 20 percent.

Also, every time you apply for a credit card, the credit card company makes an inquiry into your credit report. Every inquiry can take anywhere from 5 to 20 points away from a credit score.

To many inquiries within a short time period can have a negative impact on your credit score.

Also, beware of cutting up cards. Closing too many accounts at once can increase your credit to debt ratio and that can hurt your credit score.

For example, if you have $10,000 in available credit and a $2,000 balance on a card you’re using 20 percent of your available credit.

If you cut up a card with that has a $5,000 limit you have now reduced your available credit to $5,000, but if you still have that $2,000 balance you have pushed your credit to debt ratio up to 40 percent.

Most companies want card holders to carry a 30 percent credit to debt ratio.

You can get rid of credit cards, but you should do it gradually.

Kristen Garrett of Advantage Credit Counseling in Pittsburgh, “The thing to do is to cancel one then wait awhile. Do it slowly, don’t knock out a bunch of credit all at the same time.”

Also don’t do it right before applying for a major loan.