You should check your credit report. It is now free to view your credit report one time each year. There are three different credit bureaus that report on everyone. You’ll want to view all three reports, or you should. Since we can only view the reports one time per year I print ours’ and keep them on file. That’s probably not necessary but it makes me feel better. Brian pointed out that it was probably a waste of a lot of paper since each report is 10-20 pages.
The official site to check all 3 reports is www.annualcreditreport.com.
The main thing you’re looking for is any activity that is not accurate. Everything on ours’ looked good. I did catch a JCPenney card that Brian opened to get a deal on clothes before we were together. I remembered exactly what he bought with it because on one of our first dates he told me he went shopping and bought some new clothes. I even remember the shirt he was wearing that day and that I thought it was so cute that he wore something new to take me out. Of course he didn’t know what I was talking about. I guess you can tell who’s the sentimental one. Anyway, he doesn’t have the card anymore but the account is still open so he’ll have to call and close it.
The free reports don’t give a credit score. I would be really curious about ours’ although I’m fairly confident they are good. It won’t matter since we don’t plan on going in debt anymore unless we get the chance to buy more acreage at a good price, which is pretty much not going to happen.
I have noticed that the number of credit card offers we get has really dropped off. It’s sad that credit card companies target college students so much. Maybe they are starting to realize that no means no means go away.
In other financial news, we have to pay our property taxes next month. We’ve been putting aside money for the last few months. I can’t put into words how good it feels to have the money sitting there instead of having to use up our paychecks and do nothing else next month. We’ve been putting money aside for our big predictable bills, mostly insurance premiums. On one hand it’s hard to sock that money aside instead of throwing it towards our current goal. On the other hand, I have a much slower heartrate now when I open the bills. There were so many times when we got lucky and got an unexpected check in the mail on the same day that a big bill came. I like knowing that we’re not leaving it to chance anymore.
I’ll be so glad when we buy this semi trailer and start the debt snowball. We’ve been talking about it for so long I just want to be there already, I’m tired of doing other things. I want to see those balances going down down down! 🙂
Have you checked your credit? Will you now? How are things going on the $$$ homefront? Do you set aside for big bills or take the pray-it-works-out approach?
My hubby is really good about keeping track of what is on our credit reports. We’ve had to dispute a few things, but haven’t had any problems recently. We just keep working those bills down. I can’t wait until its all paid off.
I check our credit reports yearly without fail. I also have added up all of our big expenses: car insurance, property taxes, homeowners insurance and put that amount plus an extra amount in a separate savings account every paycheck.