Your credit reports matter. Your credit score impacts the interest rate you get on a mortgage, a car loan, apartment leases, credit card approvals, and even employment applications.
You may think you have one credit report and one score, but the fact of the matter is that you have several reports and scores. It is important to review them all to ensure that the information on your credit reports do not contain errors and have up to date information.
What are the most cost efficient ways to obtain a free credit score and free credit report?
In this post we’ll cover some different free and paid options to review your credit reports and credit scores before credit repair.
AnnualCreditReport.com is the most popular choice for most people to obtain a free credit report. The website lives up to it’s name, offering people a free credit report every 12 months with 3 reports from the largest credit reporting bureaus, including Experian, TransUnion and _________. Although the report won’t contain your credit score, it will contain the most detailed reports about your credit – essentially giving you a to do list of items to address when working to restore your credit. AnnualCreditReport.com is the only official site explicitly directed by Federal law to provide credit reports.
If you really want to know your credit score, PrivacyGuard.com is the website you can reliably turn to. They have a great score simulator, offering 3 FAKO scores across 3 reports from the largest credit reporting bureaus. While FAKO scores are not your FICO scores (learn more about the difference between FAKO vs. FICO here), these scores still give you a ballpark estimate for your credit standing. Obtaining these scores and reports are not technically “free” – PrivacyGuard.com offers a 2 week trial for $1 – but it’s worth the investment. Just make sure to cancel your free trial after you obtain your scores, otherwise you’ll incur an expense of $19.99 / month after your 2 week trial.
For free monthly credit monitoring, sign up at CreditKarma.com. You’ll receive 2 FAKO scores and 2 credit reports from TransUnion and Equifax.
Bonus websites for pulling your credit and credit monitoring
Besides these three resourceful websites, there are two other places online that are useful for pulling your credit, credit monitoring, and obtaining a credit score.
CreditCheckTotal.com is similar to PrivacyGuard.com in the sense that both sites offer a $1 trial period to obtain useful information about your credit. CreditCheckTotal.com’s trial period is only 1 week and then goes up to $29.99 / month, but in the trial period you will be able to obtain 3 different FICO 8 scores (there are 49 different FICO scores in use today, so it is useful to obtain several different scores for a more well rounded estimate of your credit standing), as well as 3 credit reports.
myFICO.com is the only place you can get your real scores from a ‘soft’ pull. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay more than all the other websites for this information. There is NO trial period, so there’s no real workarounds. You can pay $55 for a single credit pull, or you can pay $30 / month for a 3 month minimum agreement. Using the 3 month agreement is especially useful if you are in the process of restoring your credit and would like to see the progress of your efforts. myFICO.com will enable you to see all of your FICO scores (18 versions of them).
No matter what your situation, Go Clean Credit has a solution. We have many credit repair programs that are available to help you overcome your credit situation and place you back on the path to financial success. Real credit restoration is not a once size fits all model and we tailor your needs to the right program, but most people can start for just $99 per month.
We have fixed price programs that get you back on track in as little as 5 months, debt resolution solutions, programs geared toward people who have had recent short sales or foreclosures and many others. Help is just a free phone call away or you can fill out an appointment request. Contact Go Clean Credit to schedule a free consultation today.