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Writer's picture Treavor Dodsworth CFP®, CPA, CKA®

#110 - Free Credit Report


Free Credit Report

Today is October 2nd. We are 75% of the way through the year. For those of you who set goals for the year 2021, we are about to enter crunch time. One goal I am just sure everyone has set is to take advantage of the free credit reports. During non-COVID times, you can request a free credit report from Experian, Equifax, and/or TransUnion every 12 months by going to www.annualcreditreport.com. During COVID, they have actually increased how often you can request a free report. There are two primary advantages of requesting a report that I am aware of:

  1. You could identify activity that you did not generate. For example, if someone used your personal information to open a credit card, you may find it by looking at your credit report.

  2. You could identify accounts you may have forgotten about. For example, you opened up a department store credit card to save 10% on a shirt and forgot to pay it off. The account could just be sitting out there slowly (or rapidly) generating interest.

If you are requesting a report and it is making you pay money, you are likely at the wrong site. Also, another quick thought, you can request a report from all three credit reporting agencies at one time or just do one now so you have the option of doing the others later if you wanted. By taking the latter approach, you are taking the risk that an additional item would be reported at another credit bureau that you may not catch by just looking at one. Maintaining accurate information can help improve the accuracy of your credit score. Thankfully, requesting a free credit report is easy to do. You just need to follow the prompts at www.annualcreditreport.com.

 

Interesting Article(s) or Video(s)

  • I originally saw this article on Kitces.com. I have often thought financial literacy should be taught in schools. Per this article “Schwab said it aims to mobilize a quarter of its current workforce by 2025 to teach financial literacy to teens across the country.”

 

Thank you for reading!

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