Give credit where credit is due

I love being married. More specifically, to Michael, who thinks of such clever things as requesting our free credit reports.

This is something that the government requires to be offered free of charge every year, which degree of interference I don't exactly hold truck with but from which I will gladly profit as long as it's there. Earlier Michael asked me to check into getting our credit reports, so I found out all about this. If this is not something you have done before or even regularly, take note. You should do it. It is free and helpful.

There are three major credit report companies - Experian, Equifax, and Transunion - each of which is required to give up to one free credit report a year. So theoretically, you could get three a year, if you plan it right. Getting your credit checked every four months should allow you a good handle on what's going on and enable you to monitor all your credit cards and make sure no one has stolen your identity.

Interesting note: You can also request credit checks on your children (although you have to jump through a few more hoops to establish identity). This is a good idea, since infant identity theft is rampant, and if you don't check up on this it's unlikely you'd notice anything until the child turns 18 and starts applying for credit, only to discover that his credit rating is trashed.

The best place to go is annualcreditreport.com, which has all the information you need and links to easy phone requests. This is the official site - no point in giving away personal information to a phony phisher.

It's amazing to see how closely they keep track of everything - every credit account I have ever held and the promptness of all payments. Michael's history has a lot of addresses, but I beat him in the alias department (getting married helped).