Manage Your Credit & Identity

Financial Literacy Month – Tip #12

Order Your Credit Report

Here’s the tip from July 1 -Credit month:

Today, I want you to order your credit report for FREE from Annual Credit Report. You can do this online and print the report right away, call to order your report or download the form and order it by mail.

www.AnnualCreditReport.com

877-322-8778

P O Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281s

Remember this is the only FREE service to get your credit report. Don’t be fooled by others offering you free credit reports if you sign up for something that requires you to pay for something else.

If you do this online, be prepared to answer security questions about your credit history. Each credit reporting agency will ask you several questions that you must answer correctly to be able to get the report online. If you think you will not know the details of you credit, then order your report by phone or mail and you will be receiving the report in about two weeks.

You are entitled to one FREE credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies once every twelve months. I suggest that you only order ONE credit report from one of the credit reporting agencies today. Then in four months, order another credit report from the second credit reporting agency. Then again, in another four months order the third credit reporting agency. This way you are seeing your credit report three times per year at no cost to you. Go to the Appendix for this date and mark your calendars.

To purchase a copy of either of my books Thrive In Five: Take Charge of Your Finances in 5 Minutes a Day or 111 Ways To Save

#JillRussoFoster #30WaysToSave

Are You Going To Be A Victim of Fraud?

It’s said that everyone will be a victim of fraud at least once it their lifetime. Yikes!

What steps are you taking to protect yourself? While you can’t protect yourself 100%, you can take steps to lessen your chances or to catch it as fast as possible. Don’t be an easy target.

Here are a few tips that we do in our household:

First, your mailbox. Is your mail sitting in there all day or longer? Do you put your outgoing mail in there with the flag up for? All of these are easy targets to get your personal information. In our house, we take all outgoing mail to the Post Office. We pick up our incoming mail daily. Less time for someone to take our bank or credit card statement with our information.

Next is your car. Yes, you know your should lock it, but do you? If you do, what are you leaving inside your car? I just watched a video of people going to the gym and not carrying anything. To me, that means they left their purse / wallet in their car. Depending on the location, this can be an easy target for theft. Are you shopping and putting your packages in the car and going to another store? Leaving your car unlocked or the window partial open can give someone easy access to your belongings.

What about your home? Do you lock your home? What do you toss out / recycle? Think about your documents – can someone steal your identity by taking your trash. We shred everything and you should too. We also installed cameras to monitor our home. What about your computer / cell phones? What activities are you doing on them? Are you always connected to a secure network? Never do tasks such as viewing or paying bills when you are on pubic wifi. Set up two factor authentication for your accounts. Do each of your online accounts have there own user ID and password? When was the last time you changed your passwords? Monitor your bank and credit card accounts at least weekly to look for suspicious activity. Monitor your credit report / score to anything suspicious. Remember, the sooner you catch it, the less they can take.

To monitor your credit report, sign up for my newsletter at www.JillRussoFoster.com. In addition to the newsletter, subscribers will be given a reminder email to view their credit report three times per year for free and it won’t hurt your credit score.

Understand Your Credit

Let’s talk about where your credit is today. Those of you on my newsletter list should have recently pulled your January credit report. What are you hoping to accomplish? Do you want better credit? Do you want to be able to get financing when you need it at a reasonable interest rate? You can do this and it is possible. If your credit isn’t where you want it to be, you can change it. There’s no magic want and it can’t be done overnight (and you can pay someone to improve your score), but you can see improvements in a relatively short amount of tim choices e.

Here are some credit score tips:

Always pay at your bills on time. If you don’t have the money to pay your bill when it’s due, make at least the minimum payment required, so as not to be late. If it’s the timing that is an issue, change the due date. Many companies will do this very easily.
Pay down your debt. Reduce the total amount your owe on credit. Make a plan to pay it down and stick to it.
Watch your spending. If you can’t afford something, determine is it a need or a want. Needs are must have such as food, clothing, shelter. Wants are your desires, you can live without but would be really nice to have, but maybe you need to set a goal to get that want in the future.

All this over time will improve your credit and thereore credit score. The thing to remember is the newer credit counts more than item from the past. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Your first credit report of 2020

This month use Experian

Hello, it’s Jill again, reminding you to get your finances in order so you can start the new years off right.

How to Order Your Credit Report

The only authorized source for your report is AnnualCreditReport.com. You won’t be charged and they won’t force you to sign up for “credit monitoring”. It’s yours to review by law. Learn more.

Visit www.AnnualCreditReport.com:

Select your state, then click Request Report.
Fill out your information, then click Continue.
When it asks you to select a service, select Experian.

Not comfortable ordering online? There are other ways to order your report:

Mail your postal order by downloading the form at AnnualCreditReport.com
Call in your order at 1-877-322-8228

What should you do with your report?

Review it for accuracy!
Follow the instructions to correct any errors.
And, always remember to keep copies for your records.

Were you hoping for your credit score instead? Try CreditKarma.com. It doesn’t give you a FICO score, but it comes close. And, there’s no charge for you. CreditKarma funds their service through website advertising.

P.S. I’ll send you another reminder in April for your next report of the year.

What’s In Your Wallet?

As the holidays approach, I want you to have a a happy, healthy and safe holiday season. Spend some time with family, friends doing the things that you like and want to share.

As you are having a great time out and about, I want you to consider this. To coin a phrase, what’s in your wallet? Here are a few things that should NOT be in your wallet for the holidays or other times of the year:

Social Security Card
Passport (carry only when traveling internationally)
Passwords List

The less in your wallet, the better it is for you, if it’s stolen. For more items, AARP’s article 7 Items To Leave Home.

When my purse was stolen, I was fortunate to be able to cancel my credit cards, cell phone etc. The transaction that occurred, took quite a while to have reversed and cleared. Don’t let this happen to you.

Time To Order Your Credit Report

For your last report of the year, use TransUnion

Hello, it’s Jill again, reminding you to get your finances in order by ordering your last credit report of the year.

How to Order Your Credit Report

The only authorized source for your report is AnnualCreditReport.com. You won’t be charged and they won’t force you to sign up for “credit monitoring”. It’s yours to review by law.

To Learn More, Visit AnnualCreditReport.com:

Select your state, then click Request Report.
Fill out your information, then click Continue.
When it asks you to select a service, select TransUnion.

Not comfortable ordering online? There are other ways to order your report:

Mail your postal order by downloading the form at AnnualCreditReport.com
Call in your order at 1-877-322-8228 FREE

What should you do with your report?

Review it for accuracy!
Follow the instructions to correct any errors.
And, always remember to keep copies for your records.

Were you hoping for your credit score instead? One option is to take a look at CreditKarma.com, Quizzle.com or CreditSesame.com. They won’t give you a FICO score, but they come close by providing a close approximation of your score. And, there’s no charge for you.

May you have a fun and meaningful holiday season from Halloween through to New Year’s Eve and everything in between.

Another Data Breach – Was Your Information Compromised?

It happened again – this is NOT the first time and it won’t be the last! Another data breach. This time it’s Capital One!

So what should you do?

When is the last time you changed your passwords? Not only should you change them often, each account should have a different password. Yes, you heard me – each one should be unique. That way if someone gets your password, they won’t have access to all your accounts.
When is the last time you checked your credit report and/or credit score? You can monitor your own credit easily for free.
If you are not planning on using your credit in the near future, freeze it. Not only will they not be able to open an account, neither will you. Remember to freeze all three credit reports.
When is the last time you viewed your accounts? Do you check them in between statements? You should consider checking your accounts at least weekly. The sooner you catch something, the easier it is to stop it.

Take some time to make a plan that works for you and do your research. You may need to do other things to protect yourself. Here are some tips from AARP about the breach.

To be reminded to view your credit report three times a year, sign up for my newsletter and get a reminder email to check your credit report.

Are You Part of the Equifax Breach?

By now you should have heard about the Equifax credit breach. About 1.5 million people may have been exposed in just this breach. Are you one of them? Credit Report Shock

First, if you are not sure, check to see if you were exposed. Click here to check.

Then follow the instructions to submit your claim if you were exposed. There are choices to make when you submit your claim, so take you time and read everything before making your choices.

Hopefully, you were not exposed, but if you were you need to act fast to submit your claim.

Reducing Your Interest And/Or Fees

Last, we spoke about bank accounts – now I’ll talk about credit cards.

Do your homework and determine what credit cards your have, what interest rate and fees your paying.

First, you must be honest with yourself and decide which of these two categories you fall into:

Credit card balances are paid in full each and every month
You pay your credit card monthly, but carry a balance month to month

Which one are you?

If you are number #1, you are not concerned about the interest rate associated with your credit card. You pay the balance in full each and every month, so there isn’t interest charged to you. You need to look at the fees that you might incur.

If you are a number #2, you care about the interest rate and the lower the interest rate is, the less you pay each and every month while you are carrying a balance.

Are you using the right credit card for the spender you are? If not, look around to determine if there is a better option for you.

Make Your Money Grow

Do you have the best bank / credit union accounts? How can you tell which is best for you?

For your bank / credit union account, you want to earn the highest interest rate (paid to you) with no (or the lowest) fees. Start by looking at what you currently have – how much are you earning and paying? Once you know this information, you have a starting point. Now compare that with what other’s offer. Can you do better? Don’t forget while looking compare both local, out of state and virtual banks / credit unions. What would you have to do to eliminate all fees?

Keep in mind, that the bank and/or credit union you are looking at must (non negotiable) be FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.) for a bank or savings and loan. Credit Unions are insurance through NCUA (National Credit Union Administration). This protects your money up to $250,000. Once you confirm this, then look at how you earn interest and what fees are involved before making your choice.

Personally, we bank both locally and virtually. We earn interest on both our checking and savings accounts with no fees and do NOT have to carry a large balance in the account to do this. So if we can do this, you can too.

Other quick tips, that may help you:

Don’t link your savings account to your ATM / Debit card
Set up automatic savings deposits with each and every paycheck (pay yourself first).

Remember, that every penny your earn or save is more money in your pocket. Those pennies add up.