Take a Look at Your Credit Report

You can obtain your credit report at www.annualcreditreport.com. Pulling your credit report does not have a negative impact on your score.

DO NOT GOOGLE FREE CREDIT REPORT

Google will take you to six sites before you get to the right place. Go to annualcreditreport.com. This website was set up to allow you access to the information on your credit report. It is not funded by advertisers.

Bookmark this site- annualcreditreport.com
The site allows you to receive a free credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies.

Here’s What You’ll Need

• Your full name
• Address (Previous address if you’ve been at your residence less than 2 years)
• Social Security
• Birthday

Great, you’ve entered the information. Now choose which report you want. Information will vary between reports. Wondering why?

Lenders do not report to all three credit reporting agencies. Lenders and/or collection agencies actually pay a fee to report information and as a result they do not report to all 3.

You can pull all 3 or you can stagger the reports. There are benefits to both approaches.

Option 1: Pull all 3 reports

This allows you to review all 3 for accuracy and to compare. This can be beneficial if you are applying for a major purchase and there could be errors. It also makes it easy, you’ve pulled the reports, reviewed them and you don’t have to think about it until next year.

Option 2: Stagger the reports

This approach keeps finances top of mind and allows you to catch errors more rapidly as the reports are typically similar.

Automate Your Finances

Create a reminder in your phone to tell you to pull these reports. Think of your credit report as a birthday. Create an annual reminder in your phone to pull each report. If I’m pulling my Experian report today, I will create an annual reminder to pull Experian on November 3rd every year. I’ll repeat this step for TransUnion and Equifax.

Go ahead, pull up your calendar and create an event in your phone. I’ll wait.
Review the report for accuracy.

I know you’re thinking the report doesn’t show my score. You’re right! You can pay a little more for your score. If your goal is to improve your score, I’d recommend paying a little to get that score. The cost is under $10.

Curious how it’s determined – come back later this month to check out our tip on credit scoring!

Some additional resources: You can call GreenPath and we can walk you through the process of pulling your report.

Dusti Young has a passion and energy for spreading financial wellness. Through her former role at GreenPath, she connected people to financial wellness by working with GreenPath’s partners.

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