You may know that the credit reporting agencies provide a number known as a FICO score. This is an important number to lenders, and you should know what yours is. It will determine whether you can get credit at all and, if you can get it, what your rates will be like. I had some credit difficulties a few years back and I have occasionally obtained scored copies of my credit reports to see how my credit is recovering. (Someday I'll maybe write more about my fiasco.) I've been wanting to monitor my report more closely to guard against identity theft.
Today I signed up for MyFico.com's Score Watch service. For $80 a year, they monitor one of your credit reports (Equifax) and send you e-mail and/or an SMS every time your score changes -- and any time anything happens that may impact your score, such as new credit inquiries or new accounts being opened. As it happens, this meets my goal of seeing how my score is progressing as well as knowing immediately if someone is trying to obtain credit in my name. Actually, I didn't pay $80, I used coupon code myFico144 and saved 10%. You get two free Equifax reports with the service as well. (You get one per year from each agency through AnnualCreditReport.com, but it's nice to be able to get a couple extras.)
So today I learned: