How To Build Your Credit Score From Nothing – Part 4
“Closely monitor your credit report”
After you have built up your credit history by doing the easy steps in Parts1-3 of this series (see links below to go to those posts), the final step of this process is to periodicaly monitor your credit score/history.
Fortunately, with the development of the internet, effectively monitoring your credit score/history has become quite simple.
Personally, I use the site, Annualcreditreport.com (see link below), because it is maintained by the Federal Trade Commission. (Yes, this is even though the song for Freecreditreport.com is ringing through my head at this very moment)
The FTC allows you to get a free credit report one time per year from each of the major nationwide consumer credit reporting companies:
Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Follow the steps below to get your credit report generated:
- Go to annualcreditreport.com, select the state you live in.
- Enter all of your personal information. Because you have to input your social security number, I prefer to use annualcreditreport.com vs. freecreditreport.com because it is maintained by a federal agency.
- Select that you want credit reports from all of the 3 credit reporting companies.
- You will then step through the report generation at each company. As you generate your report with each company, print out a copy to keep for your records and review.
- Be sure you cut through all of the chances/opportunities that each company offers for you to buy anything. Your annual credit report is COMPLETELY FREE. Don’t be fooled.
- Unfortunately, seeing your credit score is not free. On most of the sites, it costs $7.95 to view your credit score one time. For my purposes, viewing my credit history is sufficient because I am not in the market for a home loan where I need to know my credit score to determine if I qualify for something.
How to Review Your Credit Report
The key here is to look for anything that is inaccurate or that might indicate identity fraud.
- Ensure that all of your accounts are in “Satisfactory Account” status. If they are not, review those and make sure you agree and can remember the reason stated for the account not being satisfactory.
- Review the past due amounts on loans and credit cards you have to make sure they are accurate.
- Review the inquiries that were made to your credit report and ensure that no unauthorized access occurred.
- Monitor the “closed accounts” section of your report. Frequent closing of accounts can negatively impact your credit score.
Well, that’s all! You did it! You built your credit score and are on the road to maintaining it for life! Congrats!
If any one has any questions about any of these credit building methods, feel free to post them to get some conversation going. It has been a pleasure delivering these techniques to you.
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Keep on learning!
Jacob
