Well, I can't really give you advice on what you should do, but I can tell you what I decided to do.
1) Annual Free Credit Reports --I collected all three free credit reports at once the first time because I wanted to work on GWs & other removals, so I felt the need to know what was reporting to each. In the future, however, I will stagger them in the future for updates.
2) I signed up for CreditKarma in order to keep track (as often as weekly) as to how my score is generally trending by virtue of actions I'm taking, such as lowering credit utilization (etc.). They pull info from TransUnion, so their reporting of, say, collections or utilization matches what TU is reporting. Their scoring system is not an accurate FIKO, but it gives a good sense of how your FIKO is trending, it's free, and they update as often as weekly. This is how I first found out that my Asset Acceptance collection had been removed this week (which I confirmed by pulling the report)!!!!
3) I signed up (paid for) a quarterly TU report with FICO here at MyFico for about $50-ish. I decided it was worth it to me because of all my efforts to clean up my report, I needed a periodic check on what the actual report & score looked like. I probably will not renew this the following year, since the most drastic changes are happening this year. For maintaining or keeping up in future years, I believe the staggered free reports will be sufficient, along with CreditKarma.
Obviously, take advantage of any report due to you by law for credit denial or what-have-you. One final note: I am monitoring TU most closely, & don't see the other reports as often. But, since I know what they were reporting at the begining of the year ... I know when I make some progress on a deletion, GW or whatever, that I can always call the other two & ask if the TL has been removed, and send them documentation. So basically, I can check in on those others in order to make sure reporting is accurate.
You have to keep a balance & we can't be wasting too much of our $$ on just seeing where we're at. Then again, if you are in the process of making major changes, it's important to have some way to track where you are at. Good luck finding what works best for you!
Starting Score: TU 490 on 11/2012
Here's my setup
1) Free EQ FICO score from DCU every month plus i have FICO score watch
2) I can view my EX CR for FREE everyday from there website. experian.com/view........you must have a report number. Get it from the credit report you can order once per year.
3) I use credit karma for my TU report. My capital One card just gave me some type of free membership they just started which is powered by TU
I use my privacy matters / eliminate ID theft, which costs about $12 a month and allows daily pulls of all 3 reports. This service requires about a week of account setup before usable and also necessitates learning how to use the service and manually recording the time the reports were pulled each day, because if you re-pull less than 24-hours later, the reports come up with invalid data and you waste that pull.
I get my EX FICO monthly from PSECU. I don't live in PA, but was able to find a way in to this CU since I have lived in PA once before.
I get my TU FICO from Barclays. Discover and Wal-Mart also offer regular free TU FICO scores.
I get my EQ FICO from myFICO Score Watch, which is the best FICO monitoring service offered anywhere.
EX:694 TU:744 EQ:777
@ezdriver wrote:My opinion is that reviewing one's credit reports [all three] once per quarter is more than sufficient. As long as one is using credit responsibly, and following some of the payment timing and utilizations tips posted in this forum, one does not need any other paid service to keep a proactive eye on one's credit. Too many of the "monitoring" services focus on score and activity but no context or comprehensive or useable information ... again in my opinion.
And once per quearter for 3 credit reports works for many people who are just looking for a general progress tracking. I find it useful to be able to pull more frequently, but that is because I am meticulous about planning my applications for new credit and have lots of different accounts reporting all of the time. For example:
I want to apply for 3 new cards by end of April or early May. It could take a few weeks for these cards to get to me, and I want to make sure that I have them before I leave for vacation at the beginning of June so that I have no problem meeting minimum spend for signup bonuses.
My util is currently reporting at about 13%, and I know, from previous experience, that my FICO score will go up about 5 to 10 points just by dropping util below 10%. Once my last two revolving accounts finish reporting, I will be where I want for my applications. The lenders I am applying might pull from any CRA, possibly more than one. So I am not going to apply until the day that I see all three CRAs have the new utilization data which will result in an optimal score. If I was only pulling once every 3 months, I wouldn't be able to perfectly time it like this.