Credit Reports

I only subscribe to Runner's World, PC, PC World, and Smart Computing magazines. I only read a few of the hundreds I have backlogged, much to my wife's ire.

Anyway, I found something really useful in this month's PC World.

It's federal law that you can get one free credit report every 12 months. But the cool thing is that there are 3 different credit report companies so if you are smart like me, you can order one every 4 months, rotating through each company.

Here is how it works. Go here to get started. Make sure you only use annualcreditreport.com because you just know there are going to be similar companies that will try to get you to pay for this.

I did this for Equifax and got my credit report. Seems I got like uber-good credit, thank you very much.

I copied the entire report as a Word document and saved it on my computer. Then I set up reminders in Outlook to tell me to get a copy of my Transunion report every February, my Experian report every June, and my Equifax report every October. That way I get a report every 4 months and save them on my computer.

I also tried to get one for my wife with the plan to get her Transunion report every April, her Experian report every August, and her Equifax report every December but we couldn't get past the security question. It asked about a mortgage loan we did not recognize so we have to print out a form and send a request by snail mail.

But when we get this rolling, we will be getting free credit reports every February, April, June, August, October, and December.