Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. Last year, we set out to simplify our wallets before Madison was born (Cutting $2,000 in Credit Card Annual Fees: Our Simplified Wallet Strategy for 2025). Our goal wasn’t to maximize every credit card perk. Instead, we wanted to reduce the total amount paid in annual fees, eliminate coupon-book credit cards (cards with high annual fees and lots of credits), and keep only the cards that delivered outsized value with minimal effort. One year later, it’s time to see how closely we stuck to that plan, what surprised us, and which cards earned a permanent place in our wallets.
One Year Later at a Glance:
- 💳 Closed 5 credit cards
- ⬇️ Downgraded 3 credit cards
- ✨ Opened 5 new credit cards (and earned 360,000 points & miles in welcome bonuses)
- 💵 Received $429 in retention offers
- 🏨 Prioritized Free Night Certificates and travel credits over coupon-book benefits
Cards We Closed
| Credit Card Name | Annual Fee | Notes |
| Laura’s AMEX Gold | $325 | Closed card in February 2025 (we were tired of jumping through hoops to get all the monthly credits.) |
| Barclays JetBlue Plus | $99 | Closed card in March 2025 (we didn’t have any upcoming JetBlue flights planned.) |
| Bank of America Air France / KLM | $89 | Closed card in March 2025 (we didn’t have any upcoming Air France / KLM flights planned.) |
| AMEX Delta Platinum Business | $250 | Closed card in July 2025 (I redeemed all my Delta SkyMiles and didn’t have any upcoming Delta flights planned.) |
| We decided to keep this credit card open in the hopes of a future product change to a Bank of America Alaska Airlines Credit Card. | ||
| AMEX Business Gold 3 | $375 | Closed card in November 2025 (we were tired of jumping through hoops to get all the monthly credits.) |
While most of these credit cards come with a variety of credits / coupons, these cards did not provide enough value for us to justify paying the annual fees for another year. Continue reading
