Tax Day!

April 15th is a convenient annual reminder to keep tabs on your financial future. So, if you are not one of the countless individuals frantically clicking through -Tax software of choice- today, then perhaps you could use Tax Day to remember to do something else that's very important.... pulling your credit report.

Each of the three credit bureaus are required by law to give you a free credit report once a year. All three are quickly and easily accessible via AnnualCreditReport.com. The three reporting agencies are TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

A credit report is a detailed history of an individuals responsibility in repayment of debts. This information is used to by lenders to determine your creditworthiness or predict the likelihood of future delinquency and determines how much you can borrow and at what percentage rate. A credit report/score may also be used in non-traditional ways such as a potential employer finding out how responsible you are, or if you might be in a financial hole and thus, likely to commit theft or fraud. 

Debts are classified as either revolving debt, installment debt or open debt. Reported data includes bank loans, mortgages, credit cards, collection agencies and utility companies. Installment debts are typically fixed payments for a fixed period of time, such as a mortgage. A credit card is an example of a revolving debt. Open debts must be paid in full each month, such as your electric bill.

Along with your payment history on each account, your report will contain information such as; how old each account is (older open accounts in good standing are positive), account diversity (having different types of debt in good standing shows that you have the ability to manage them well), and credit inquiries (who's been taking a peek at your files). 

You will need to look for suspicious accounts and suspicious inquiries. In keeping check with your report, YOU become the biggest factor in finding and stopping identity theft.  

Each report may have slightly varying information, so I usually pull all three and compare them to each other for accuracy. You do not HAVE to pull all three at the same time though. You can choose to spread the three out and pull one every 4 months. This tactic may be helpful if you know you may be in the process of buying a new home or vehicle or may need to take a personal loan, later on in the year. 

Please remember that a credit report is not the same as a credit score. Your credit score is based on the detailed history contained in your report. Lending agencies will not have access to your full report so they determine your creditworthiness using your score. There are many models to create a credit score, but all will give you a general idea of where you stand. During the process on AnnualCreditReport.com, you will have the option to purchase your credit score from each bureau (usually $7-8 each). This is not something you HAVE to do. For those of you that have a credit card, many of the credit card companies now offer this as a free service from one of the reporting bureaus or your FICO score. CreditKarma.com is a FREE service that provides your score by Equifax and TransUnion. Either option can be accessed at any time online. Credit Karmas score updates every 7 days. A score offered through a credit card is likely updated once a month. 

Again, both AnnualCreditReport.com and CreditKarma.com are free and VERY easy to use. 

In addition, Quizzle.com offers a free Equifax report every six months. Credit Sesame is a freemium site that offers your Experian score, is updated monthly, and recently started providing users with up to free identity theft insurance up to $50,000 (covers expenses incurred in restoring your identity, not expenses that result from the identity being stolen). I have not used either of these services yet, so I can not attest to their ease of use. 

Lastly, don't be discouraged if you find your report and score to be in the "very poor" or "poor" categories. Repairing a credit report is not a quick process (closed or negative accounts may remain on your report as much as 10 years or more), but it does not take much effort to learn ways to improve it. You've already taken the first step in repairing it by simply inquiring.

The One Where the Planet Saves Itself

My family lived on a magnificently beautiful and thriving planet. Our home overlooked a bay near the ocean. Across the bay was a beautiful waterfall like Angel Falls surrounded by lush tropical forest and white sand beaches. This planet was perfect, with one exception, a planetary event that happened every 1000 years when it reached a particular spot in its orbit. It was not a purely scientific event, it was not purely mythological, it was a strange combination of the two. There was a great unknown of what The Event would bring since no one survived the last one and it was pure speculation.

Generations past did not worry, they would never see the day of its occurrence but my generation certainly would. The Event would come suddenly and without warning. The planet knew it was time and had started to change itself. Things evolved quickly in preparation. All wildlife adapted to be smaller, closer to the ground, but mobile on land and sea. Most people had highly sophisticated personal chambers capable of withstanding extreme temperatures and sustain life, to stow away in, provided they could get to theirs in time. Most of them were coded only to allow specific individuals inside, to prevent hijacking. 

I was helping my family sort through my grandmothers things when The Event started. The earth shifted and very quickly there were no mountains or valleys. Imagine the destruction that comes when the entire earth levels itself into flatlands. Buildings were swallowed, families were instantly separated, it was mass chaos. It seemed almost impossible to try and find my families chambers but we had to try.

The atmosphere became fire with what I can only describe as a mass of solar flares. Everything but a few feet above the ground was set ablaze. Common sense along with instinct kicked in and I yelled at my family to lay with their faces to the ground. An enourmous stampeding herd of tiny deer covered us, they had developed equally tiny atmospheric bubbles to help them survive and that in turn, helped us escape the heat.

Once the heat passed the earth shifted again and water started pouring in from all directions. Massive waves made it hard to stay together but we managed. The water brought in a mythical group of seafaring invaders and conquerors armed with the intent to kill. Luckily we had brought some tools to do repairs at my grandmothers house and we were able to fight back with hammer, saws, lopers and such. Others were not so lucky and became easy targets while we escaped.

We reached our chambers but a few had been damaged and would not have enough oxygen for all of us for what we anticipated to be the duration of The Event. We decided some would stay inside and others, the younger and healthiest of us, would try to take turns in one of the undamaged chambers. Once the waters subsided they were quickly replaced by a bitter cold and the world became a snow storm. We once lived in a tropical paradise and there was no need for a pair of thick socks, much less a coat. The family of snow leopards nearby had two choices... Snuggle up and help keep us warm or become fur blankets. They wisely chose the latter.

The planet continued to rotate through a variety of natural disasters, lightening storms, tornadoes, volcanos, each one lasting a few hours apiece. We managed to find a way to survive through each one until it was certain The Event was over. Everyone came out of their chambers and surveyed the damage incurred, grateful to have fared much better than the planets inhabitants 1000 years ago. We started immediately to rebuild our lives, after all, we would never see this again in our lifetimes, or so we thought. I could see the sun rising on the horizon and there was a pervading feeling of hope. I started to wake up in the comfort of a happy ending...  wait, that's not the sun. I'm halfway between being asleep and awake and realizing The Event was designed to restart the planet and none of mankind's invention could stay it's purpose, which it would see through until complete. It's too late... the sky of solar flares rushed upon us all. I am awake.

The One With the Terribly Corny Punchline

Last night, my best friend, actor Paul Rudd, was abducted and was going to be sacrificed at some crazy Manson Family/KKK/Burning Man rally. They had him and several others tied to lawn chairs. I sneaked in to untie him (which was surprisingly difficult considering the facts... I didn't know the secret hand motions and dance moves) and next thing I hear, comedian Lamorne Morris (Winston from New Girl) being introduced onstage. Those psychotic racists were laughing their butts off... You understand how any of this is entirely impossible. Anywho, they busted me, not before I got Paul loose, so the chase was on. It wasn't much of a chase... turns out, they can't run...

they can only march!

*sigh* even my dreams tell me stupid jokes

The One Where Nothing Makes Sense... But It Still Does

Last night I was working at a fast food place, my roll was more corporate but disaster struck (someone placed an order in drive-thru) and I was asked to make two hot dogs. I hate hot dogs. I don't know how to dress them. So they sat there ominously on the buns while I had a meltdown and eventually quit. Then I traveled all over a fictitious world with Joseph Simon in search of the perfect Taco Bell. We were hungry so instead of going to the new location across the bridge, we decided to try the downtown one. We chose poorly. Because there was no Taco Bell downtown, just a dilapidated city center with a broken fountain. Then I went to Church with Debbie Coleman and Shaq was there. As the sermon started a scanner robot burst into the room and scanned us. It happened so fast nobody knew what was happening. Then a bomb went off and most people were instantly vaporized. I survived but sadly realized that my husband was part of an evil scheme to kill people and then make money by selling their loved ones 3-D prints of their faces, hence the scanner and then the vaporizing bomb. That's actually kinda brilliant. Create the demand and then meet the demand. Anywho, I escaped the henchmen that were killing survivors by turning into a bird and flying through a broken window but DRAT, they were prepared for that. There was a net over the whole city. So I flew to the tallest tree to hide but they sent the MUTOs after me (the creatures in 2014 Godzilla that Godzilla battled). The MUTOs tore a hole in the net and myself and Shaq the pterodactyl were flying to freedom when the recycling truck drove by my house with their squeaky truck and woke me up.