Links & Resources

• www.AnnualCreditReport.com
  • Per Federal Law, you are entitled to your credit report from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies. It’s completely free, but only once per year. Any additional reports requested within a year will not be free. The three credit companies that record your financial lives are Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. This is a great way to see if there are any mistakes on file, compare the data between the three companies, and check if someone has stolen your identity by opening credit in your name.

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• www.CreditKarma.com
  • This website allows you to check your FICO credit score absolutely free. They also give you tips on how to improve your score which will save you money. I have an account with this website and find it to be very clean. Begin by creating an account which is a very short process. You don’t give them your credit card number, there are no hidden fees, and you don’t have to fulfill any obligations. Even though there are three credit bureaus, you only get a credit score from one of them. When they report your score, they present you with custom offers from banks, credit card companies, and insurance companies based on your score. You can ignore them, and they don’t send spam to your email.

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• www.treasurydirect.gov/BC/SBCPrice
  • This link is for the United States of America savings bond calculator. I recently found out that my grandparents, long since deceased, purchased a savings bond for me in the month of my birth. Each bond has a unique serial number and through this website, you can look up how much your bond is worth today. This is a nice tool provided by the US treasury, and of course it’s free. You can click around the website and learn about US debt.