Consumers with 1 credit card have lower debt and better credit, on average

Minimalism has been sparking joy for more than a decade. Multiple international bestsellers and Netflix productions on decluttering, along with plenty of TikToks, all suggest that the multibillion-dollar less-is-more industry is more than a passing fad. With that in mind, Experian explored what exactly the financial version of minimalism might look like. We looked at aggregated data of consumers with only one active credit card to see how these consumers are faring with credit, where these financial minimalists are and how they’re managing their debt. Having a single credit card may seem constraining, but Experian data shows that most consumers with only a single card are doing more than OK. Credit: Experian One Isn’t the Loneliest Number After All Most U.S. consumers have at least one credit card, though the average consumer has about four active credit cards, a figure that’s been largely unchanged for a number of years. The vast majority of these cards are general purpose credit cards, which simply means that they can be used anywhere that card is accepted. However, some store credit cards, which can only be used in particular stores, are also part of this average. However, that average doesn’t mean that having four...