There is nothing that can affect your financial well being (along with retirement plans) than having issues with your credit. This can vary from a mistake on one of your credit reports or all out identity theft. Most often you don’t notice something is wrong until rates on your variable loans or credit cards start to dramatically rise. By that time the damage has been done and all you can do is go through a painful repair process. This can take a tremendous amount of time and often involves a painful amount of paperwork.

An easier thing to do is take advantage of the government’s mandate that credit bureaus (Equifax, Esperian & Trans Union) provide you with 3 free credit reports on an annual basis. As this site suggests I find it valuable to request a report from 1 bureau in the winter, another in the summer and another in the fall roughly 4 months apart. This isn’t as fool proof as having constant monitoring, but it’s definitely much better than doing nothing! After all, the government is providing it for free so why not take advantage of it?