WASHINGTON — In this day and age, our information is readily accessible, which has many considering their credit.
The process may be daunting, but there are easy ways to protect it.
Forget the commercials and online ads, says Janet Bodnar, editor of Kiplinger Personal Finance. To start, Bodnar suggests getting a free credit score at annualcreditreport.com.
Knowing your credit score is the first step, but if the number of data breaches have you considering paying for a service to monitor your finances, there are a few options.
“The fees average anywhere from $120 to $300 a year. Experian has a service that costs about $20 a month,” Bodnar says.
If you go that route, she suggests asking how often you’ll get the reports and what happens if there’s a data breach. She says another option is freezing your credit with each credit bureau.
“It makes it nearly impossible for someone to open a new account in your name. It costs about $15 per credit bureau,” she says.
But if you want to open a line of credit, you’ll likely have to pay a small fee to unfreeze it.
