Michael Emilio

A credit report is a general overview of your credit habits. It identifies your credit accounts by type, tracks your balances, payments, credit limits, available credit, current status and information about how well you pay each account.

Everyone, by law, is entitled to a free credit report once a year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. These agencies are:

There’s only one web site that I recommend for a truly free credit report: AnnualCreditReport.com.

Whenever you apply for a mortgage, the lender will look at your credit report to see if you qualify for credit and how much they will grant you. So it’s a very good idea to take a look at your credit report on a regular basis so you can correct any errors that can negatively affect your mortgage application. For example, if you have an unblemished credit report, you can get fast access to credit and you’ll pay much less in interest.

You can contact AnnualCreditReport.com by phone (877-322-8228), by mail (Annual Credit Report Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, Ga. 30348-5281), or by filling out the request form on the Federal Trade Commission’s Web site (www.ftc.gov).

Free credit score and reports from SpendOnLife.com with subscription to thier credit monitoring service.