I have two major baddies on my credit that are the in the process of being fixed. One was a faulty reporting that the CCC has agreed to delete (they reported 120 days late, it was in fact only 30-60 days late and the CC Coffered to just delete the whole late reporting). The other is a PFD for a very small outstanding medical bill with a CA. Both the CCC and the CA stated they have just notified the CRAs. How long should it take for this to show up on my CBRs and for my FICO to reflect these changes? Is SW the best way to learn when this occurs, or is there a better method for checking on it? Thanks!
Starting Score (October 7, 2010): EQ: 698 TU: 709
Welcome to the realm of credit obsession. 
When I first started out, I had stuff falling off and updating nearly daily. I realized real fast that I'd go broke if I purchased a new FICO report every day.
I recommend subscribing to a CMS. You have plenty to choose from, but if you're going to have a bunch of stuff change on your CRs and are actively engaged in fixing your credit then I recommend a CMS that allows you to pull all 3 CRAs daily. There's only one out there and that is called CreditCheckTotal. CCT is available from their website you you can purchase it via a couple of different resellers at a lower price (USAA, and a couple others). If checking it daily isn't all that important, then there are several options to check it monthly. Be sure to check out the CMS Guide for more info. As with virtually all CMS services, ignore the scores they provide and ignore their advice too. They aren't FICO-related. As you see a change and you want to know how it impacted your FICO score, then come back here to pull the corresponding report. This method is much, much cheaper than pulling FICO reports at random.
You could use SW (monitors EQ only). Unfortunately SW will not alert you to dropped baddies. If the dropped baddie resulted in a score change, then you could get alerted if you have your Target Score set exactly right, but that can come as much as 7-10 days after the event. I'm not down on SW, in fact, both DW and I use it. Great product. Sometimes forking out a little extra is worth knowing sooner if you know what I mean. Plus SW is good at getting $5 off all future EQ reports.
You are so right about it becoming almost an "obsession." I hadn't checked my credit reports in a few years (wasn't applying for credit) and was at once shocked to learn there was a 120 day latew reported on my account and pleased that there were only three baddies I have to deal with and scores that while not great were at least hovering in the 700 range. But now that I'm dealing with the baddies I am very focused on having no baddies on my report. My AAoA is great, my utilization is very low, so getting these baddies removed will, I hope, move me toward the high achiever club.
I'm not, however, so obsessed that I need to pull daily reports (I might apply for a small home loan to fix up my condo but that would be next year so until then there's nothing for which I actually need my scores to go up beyone my own desire to have great FICOs). I think I'll use SW and check my EQ reports once/month for the next two months. By then the items should be corrected and I can determine my updated FICOs..
Thanks for info!!!!! These boards are a tremendous resource!