Get Your Free Credit Report

If you live in Minnesota (and other midwest states), today's the first day you can order your free credit report from each of the three credit reporting agencies. You can now order your reports for free once a year. The place to go is AnnualCreditReport.com.

If you live on the east coast or in the southeast, you'll have to wait a few more months. The plan is being rolled out across the country over the space of a year.

It's been suggested that if you're not a savvy web user, it might be easier just to call. The first step is to select your state, and then to input your address and social security number. To actually order the reports, you get forwarded on to the sites of the actual credit reporting agencies, although there's a navigation bar that allows you to return to AnnualCreditReport.com at any time, so you're not completely lost. But once you get your report, there are a lot of places to click through and I think it would be easy to get lost or accidentally close a window or tab. Once I was done at the first agency, I just clicked on the nav bar and it took me back to AnnualCreditReport.com which marked the first credit agency site as visited, then passed me on to the next one. Not too difficult if you know what you're doing, and you get the report instantly instead of waiting for snail mail.

Also keep in mind you just get the reports free. If you want to see your FICO score, you will need to pay extra for it. It's $5 from Experian, $6.95 from Equifax, and $5.95 from TransUnion. I haven't ordered the scores, but the report didn't look as bad as I thought. Or at least, there weren't any big surprises. I think I really want to know the scores though, because it's hard to gauge how much of an impact the three negative items actually have.

I was surprised the reports were as current as they were. I need to make some changes to my personal information. Experian has my dad listed as my spouse! And there's one open credit account that I can't figure out what it is. I thought Experian and TransUnion were easier to read, but Equifax had more information. I had trouble when I went to TransUnion. I don't know if Camino wouldn't render the page properly or if some information didn't get passed through, but I opened it up in Safari and it was fine.

All in all, a decent experience. Now I know (and knowing is half the battle).