Jill Russo Foster

Tips for Successful Personal Finances

You are here: Home / Archives for Manage Your Credit & Identity

Take Time To Protect Your Identify Now

Well it happened again – this time EquiFax! This is not the first time nor will it be the last security breach.

Here are some suggestions that you may want to take to help to protect your identity:

•    Personally, I am not a fan of doing banking on my phone, so I don’t have these apps. But I do have many texts (one for each transaction) and this way, I can catch anything immediately. I will be adding my credit cards to this process.

•    In addition, I use two-step authentication for all my accounts. Having a code either texted or phoned to me to use to access my account.

•    Check your credit report. I am a firm believer of this and now even more so. If you need reminders to check your credit for free three times per year, sign up for my newsletter here and you will get email reminders to check your credit every four months.

•    Monitor your accounts. I typically check in a couple of times a month, both my bank and credit card accounts just to look for anything that I don’t recognize. If you don’t want to do this, make sure you reconcile your accounts monthly.

•    You may want to set up credit monitoring service and/or freeze your credit report. You can check out my article on Credit Freeze here.

•    Change your passwords regularly.They shouldn’t be easy to guess (use a combination of upper and lower case letters, number and symbols) and don’t you use the same password. Each account should have its’ own individual one.

Take the time now to protect your identity. It’s much easier to do this proactively than to deal with the turmoil of identity theft later.

Save

Save

Fees, fees and more fees!

How many credit cards do you have that charge a fee?

Do you pay:

annual fee?

foreign transaction fee?

balance transfer?

cash advance?

and more

We’ll you are not alone.  There are so many credit card to choose from, that you can avoid these fees by having the right credit card for this situation.  We have a card that we use for foreign travel – no fee.  We have a low interest card 8% with no fees for when we need to finance a purchase (that we know we won’t be able to pay off in full when the bill arrives).  So it’s understanding what your needs are and what credit card meets them.

CreditCards.com released a report listing what credit cards offer what.  This will help you to decide if you have the correct credit card for your needs and may help you to save money.

 

What’s does your credit report and score say

Do you ever wonder what your credit report and score sway about you?

It might help for you to think of your credit report and score as your GPA.  What you did in college was equated to a GPA.  The same is true for you finances.  What you did or didn’t do with most of your finances becomes your credit score.

Do you want to improve your credit?  Then you need to make changes.

What do you want to know about your credit?  I am working on a new program and want your input.  Tell me specifically what you would want included – what info, what steps and more.  Post your comments here.

Think you have bad credit

You may think you have bad credit, but you can change that by being informed.  Information is the key to understanding what to do and what not to do.  I truly believe that you control your own financial destiny.

To start, make a promise to be more informed – read more credible information, understand what is considered a good credit score and more.  Learn this information and take steps each and every week to improve your credit score from where you are now.  Make a plan!

If you credit is less than you desire, start by reading articles on my website, read this report from a survey that US New and World Report did with lots of helpful information that you may not be aware of.  There is more information out there, but make sure it’s from a reputable source.  Tomorrow, we’ll talk about your options.

Your Path to Great Credit

You know that your credit is an important part of your financial life.  You know that the higher your score the better the terms are when you apply for credit – lower interest rate, lower monthly payments and more.  You may have wanted to improve your credit score, but it’s too confusing and you don’t know where to start.

Let me tell you that this is a journey and there is no instant magic pill.  It takes hard work and dedication on your part.  Where do you start?  The first step is to know your credit score.  You can get a close approximation of your FICO score.  Yes, it’s time to face the reality and look at it.  You need to know where you stand.  To see your credit score, go to my resource page and see how to access your credit score for free.

The next step is to make a plan.  These are the small steps you take each week to do just one thing to improve your credit score.  They can range from not using a credit card to make a purchase, make sure to pay that bill on time, bringing in more money to be able to make that payment and more.

I know this is hard.  Years ago I had way too much credit card debt and I couldn’t image that I would every be debt free.  But there came a day when I came to the realization that I needed to deal with it.  I made a plan and stuck to it and was out of debt. As a result, my credit score increased to be excellent.  I know that you too can do this.

Here are some more information to help you understand what it’s costing you.

Good credit card debt

Reading your credit report

Budgeting

We’ll talk more about this tomorrow.

Did your credit score go up this past weekend?

In the past, you may have reviewed your credit score and found someone else’s information on your report?

With this new change, credit reporting agencies will be using a new three point (name, address, social security or date of birth) check system before adding liens and judgements to someone’s credit report.  Hopefully, this will stop some information from appearing on the wring person’s credit report, thus lowering the credit score.

As of July 1, you may see liens and/or judgements that are not yours removed from your credit and therefore your credit score will go up.  It’s estimated that 10 to 12 million consumers will see their credit scores rise by 10 to 40 points this past weekend.

Bottomline, you need to stay on top of your credit reports and check them regularly.  Do you want to be reminded to check one of your credit report every four months, then sign up for my newsletter Money Choices and you will receive a reminder three times per year to help you stay on top of your credit report. www.JillRussoFoster.com

 

Worried about your accounts being hijacked?

We personally view our bank and credit cards accounts weekly – we check for unrecognized transactions.  We use two step authentication. We don’t do this from our phones, only home computers.  You may think we are overly cautious, but here’s what CNBC has so say.