Young, Fabulous & Broke

Last week I watched an interesting Suze Orman special on PBS called "Young, Fabulous & Broke". During the special Suze (a financial guru and best-selling author) spoke to the needs of 25 - 35 year old people (thus the title). I found some of Suze's information very helpful and was particularly interested in her discussion of credit reports. A few years back the Fact Act was passed, thus enabling the average joe to check his credit report from the three major reporting companies for FREE once a year. Suze emphasized that checking your credit regularly is vital if you ever plan to own a home, purchase a car, etc.

So I surfed over to Clark Howard's web site (his radio show is fantastic!) and found a web site that assists you in checking your credit report: www.annualcreditreport.com. Annual Credit Report will take you directly to the three major credit report companies where you can check your credit for free. However, depending on where you are in the U.S., you may not be able to check until your region is eligible for the free report (the western region became eligible in December). Make sure you have all of your pertinent account information handy, especially for TransUnion's web site. The credit companies use account numbers and personal information to verify your identity before showing you your report.

I hope y'all will find this information as helpful as I did...