Sorting out the debts

One of the major concerns that has arisen since the onset of the recent financial crisis is the amount of debt not only in the public sector, but also in the private sector. The burden of debt carried by individuals in the Western economies has risen out of all proportion and needs some serious regining in.
The good news is that the slow economic recovery is actually a result of people being less willing to spend and get into debt once more. People are now seriously considering their financial committments. This is familiar territory for me as I have been practicing frugal living for the last five or six years, and have been using 0% interest credit cards to help me pay back a mounting debt.
I got a shock when I applied for my first 0% card, only to find I was refused... I looked into the reasons and discovered that having too many credit accounts open but unused was having a negative effect on my credit rating. I had a credit report done to find out exactly how many accounts were open in my name, and then went and closed all the ones I wasn't using.
It's obvious when you think about it, lenders are not going to be willing to lend to someone who has a lot of dormant accounts open (as I did) because potentially, one could access all that credit in one go. Suppose you had four dormant accounts with credit limits of $7K, then potentially you have $28k at your disposal already, a cautious lender would be foolish to extend more credit unless you have assets or income that matches that type of debt.
So, my advice is to routinely close dormant accounts, and periodically get a credit check to make sure that dormant accounts aren't still affecting your credit score.