Just a 49-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Teacher Monkey (TM). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). 
Another week of pretty skies...
I just noticed that we had reached the max of our grocery credit card reward, and so it is time to take those credit cards out of our wallets for the rest of the year.
I don't know if it will be worth keeping this credit card longer term, but I presume it will be useful for at least one more year.
I haven't made any credit card changes in a while. I can see that empty nest spending (in another year or two) will be different and it will be a time to re-strategize credit card rewards. This card is first on the chopping block.
I am surprised all my credit cards are about 15 years old at this point. In the past, the high reward credit cards would generally disappear every few years, contributing to my lack of long open credit history. They'd change the rewards and I would close the cards, finding better rewards elsewhere. This has never made any difference to my credit score. Good credit stays on your report for 10 years. Which is the most obvious reason why there's no difference if I keep one card open for 15 years or if I just close everything and refi my mortgage at the same time. (I've had a 800+ credit score with something like only 1 year of open credit history, after our last mortgage refi).
I just looked it up and my average open credit credit age is 15 years.
I was just looking up semester college dates, now that life is much simpler on the college front. I won't pay for TM(21)'s last semester until March. The financial aid he is due for the year could be the same as his last tuition payment, a wash.
I can report that TM's total college costs will be $12,500. That is tuition and everything, because he does just live at home. State grants were substantially reduced this school year.
This is for an equally nerdy Statistics degree (could land him the same job MM just got with his engineering degree). But of course, he will be working on his teaching credential next year, which will cost somewhere between 'a school district paying him to get his degree and work for them after', between that and ~$6,000. If it ends up costing $6,000, his 5-year college costs will be very much in the same ballpark of his brother's tuition costs (5 years for 2 degrees).
September 13th, 2026 at 05:08 pm 1789319280
I'd love to close out most of dozen or so credit cards but all i've ever heard is that doing so would hurt my credit, which is about 830 now, so I'm reluctant to do that. I rotate through them so I'm using each, and it means that any given credit card bill is relatively low.
September 13th, 2026 at 06:18 pm 1789323497
September 14th, 2026 at 04:30 am 1789360214
Congrats on your great credit scores.
Double congrats with your children's progress in their future.
September 14th, 2026 at 05:05 pm 1789405536
In a side note, people are saying college isn't worth it. Is it that college isn't worth it or is that a lot of people overspend on college? They don't look at all options?
September 15th, 2026 at 02:46 pm 1789483595
September 18th, 2026 at 08:52 pm 1789764749
That's terrific about your credit card rewards. Interest stat about 15 years on a cc.
Even more terrific is the fact your children have earned degrees and won't have huge debts. A great start to their futures.
September 22nd, 2026 at 04:39 pm 1790095185
But most people don't actually look at the degree and the cheapest way to get there. That's not to say people can't go more expensive they can. but only if they can decide if it's worth it.