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We are almost through the first month of 2007. One of the posts I've been meaning to make is to encourage you to get one of your credit reports. A credit report is file being kept on you by the three credit reporting agencies - Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. These files basically keep track of the types of credit you have, credit inquiries that have been made about you, credit requests you have made, and whether you are current or deliquent with your payments. What makes these files particularly important is that they are used to make up you FICO score. Your FICO score is a number which lenders use to determine whether or not to give you a loan as well as what interest rate to give it you at. The FICO score has also been used for other purposes such as insurance and even job applications. As you can see in todays day and age you can see why it is important to make you sure your credit report stays accurate.
Fortunately the government has recognized the importance of being able to check your credit report. They have made it federal law that you are entitled to one free copy of your credit report from each of the credit reporting agencies. The question is where do can you get your credit report from. Well you can go to each of the credit agencies and request one. You'll also hear ads from time to time directing you to services that will provide you with them. The problem with these is that they will frequently either out right sell it to you or give it to you for "free" with the condition that you try out a credit monitoring service that they will charge you for. Not to mention I am sure there are more than a few sites out there that are designed for stealing your information. Do not get your credit report from these sites. There is a way for you to get your credit report truly free. AnnualCreditReport.com is the official site by the credit agencies where you can get a credit report for free from each of the credit reporting agencies.
Now then before you run off to get your credit report let me suggest a little strategy for you. Do not get all three credit reports at once. Instead just get one of them. Next set some form of reminder four months from now to get a different one (my intention is to post a reminder when I do, but if I were you I'd mark on a calendar or use a site like MemoToMe to send email you a reminder). Four months from then get the third. This way you will be keeping an eye on your credit reports all year long without the expense of one of those agencies who want to charge you a monthly fee to watch them for you.
You may be wondering if you should be checking that FICO score that I mentioned. To be honest not as much as your credit reports. For one thing it costs money to look are your FICO score. For another there is no one FICO score - each credit reporting agency uses a different formula to calculate it. If you do not have an idea of what your score is you might want to just to have an idea of where it is at. Presuming you have a decent score (pretty much anything above 650 is okay, although if you are below 680 you might want to look at these tips to improve your score) all you really need to monitor is your credit reports. The only other times I would bother checking your FICO score is in preparation for a major loan (such as for a mortgage or car loan). Unforntunately you cannot get your FICO score for free. The place you will want to go to get your FICO score is MyFICO.com. It will cost you $47.95 to get all three score plus all three reports. A possible strategy here would be to go ahead and pay for the score and then pull a report every 3 months to make sure there are not any problems.
