Financial Literacy Credit Series: Monitor Your Credit Reports Regularly

It is important to monitor your credit reports regularly, because errors do happen and it is your responsibility to make sure that you are catching these errors and are having them taken care of. No one else cares what your credit score is, so you have to care and you have to contact the credit bureaus that have made the errors to have them fixed.  You will want to check to see if you have closed, paid off accounts that are still reporting. You will have to file a dispute with the credit bureau and it may take up to 30 days to get a response. It will be worth it to get the errors off of your report.

It is also important to make sure that companies you want to report are reporting. Some student loan lenders are not required to report and may not be. If you have mostly credit cards and student loans you will want the loans reported because this will create a more equal balance between your revolving accounts (credit cards) and your installment accounts (home, auto, or student loans). This will help improve your score as well.

For all of LearnKey’s Financial Literacy Month resources, visit learnkey.com/financiallitmonth