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Do you know what’s in your credit report? Besides receiving competitive loan rates, your rates for all kinds of insurance and even rent may be affected by what is in your credit report. Not to mention that prospective employers are now pulling credit reports.

The good news is that you are entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit bureaus. Therefore I am setting up a yearly schedule for pulling your Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax credit reports and reminding you when the time arrives.

The schedule will include pulls in February, June, and October, so as to spot negative issues more quickly, rather than pulling all three at once.

You can obtain your free credit report here: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/

The process is simple, although once you choose Experian, you will be asked a handful of credit questions about your history to verify your identity. You may want to have your financial records available because you will be asked multiple choice questions about loan providers and monthly payment amounts.

Once you are into the Experian site, just skip all the pay options (unless you also want to check your credit score- you will have to pay to do so) and choose your free credit report. At this point, save or print it out for your future use and perusal. If you have any disputed issues, make sure you contact the credit bureau ASAP!

There you go! See you again in June for TransUnion.

Saw this on boingboing. Mindwebs was a Madison, Wisconsin (PBS maybe? aren’t they big there?) radio program that dramatized (sorta) science fiction stories. I’m betting these would be perfect for the old MP3 player.

Can’t beat that- free stories, professionally done.

Link

Becoming a subject matter expert and conveying that expertise is easier now than it has ever been in the history of mankind. The interweb enables both the learning and conveying of knowledge.

The Self Made Scholar is a site that gives you some of the tools you may needto become knowledgeable in a field. For example, it provides links to free online classes grouped by subject area (The site is actually called Self Made Scholar: Directory of Free Online Classes and Free Online Courses).

More importantly, in my view, the Self Made Scholar website contains valuable advice on defining your education goals and turning those goals into reality. For example, choosing concrete, rather than generic, goals is stressed:

Ineffective Goal – Learn HTML
Effective Goal – Create several websites using HTML, referring only minimally to a coding book.

Ineffective Goal – Learn about American literature.
Effective Goal – Identify and read 100 classic American novels, memorize the major time periods in American literature, and be able to discuss major American authors.

The site goes on the emphasize other aspects such as collecting materials, making connections, and then finally taking action. The post Create Your Own Independent Scholar Research Plan is worth a look on its own merits.

As with all learning, be sure to examine your sources because I noticed that some of the classes offered were better than others.

The “Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back” is the handbook you need when fighting your consumer battles.

It includes tips for the whole process from initiating hostilities (your initial complaint) to going nuclear (small claims court). Included are such tips as escalating complaints up the corporate ladder and reaching an officer with the power to fix them, guerrilla warfare (complaining in non-traditional forums like a company’s stock message board), going straight to the top (contacting execs with the lengthy contact list), email bombing, propaganda  measures (passing out flyers outside stores detailing your problems), and online shaming campaigns.

Lots of worthwhile advice so read the briefing, scout the terrain, and gird your loins for battle.

The Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back 

The federal Do Not Call registry became available in 2003. The registry maintains your listing for 5 years, meaning those of us who signed up in 2003 will fall off the registry soon if we do not renew.

Don’t remember when you renewed? No problem, the registry will tell you! Go to https://www.donotcall.gov/ and click “Verify Your Registration” where you can enter your phone number and email address and you will be immediately emailed your registration and expiration dates. Completely painless.

In case you are wondering, the registry works fantastic. It reduced the amount of calls we received an incredible degree. Coupled with the purchase of a telephone that speaks aloud out the phone number of the caller based on Caller ID, we now control our phone instead of allowing our phone to control us.