18 year old here

[Anonymous]

Hi all, I was just wondering whether to bother monitoring my credit as I just turned 18 2 months ago and only have 1 credit card? I am really conscience about my credit since my parents have gone through some tough times with their credit. Also, will getting score watch affect my credit score by monitoring it?

[Anonymous]

Hi Abw and welcome!

It's always a good idea to know what's on your reports.  If I were you, I'd pull my freebies from the annual credit report site.  You want to make certain you're not a victim of ID theft/fraud.

Pulling your own credit reports and/or scores will not affect your score.

Hats off to you for taking an interest at such an early age!

[RobertEG]

ABW, you are entiled under law to one free credit report yearly at annualcreditreport.com.  This is not a vendor site, it was created to comply with the FCRA, and will give you a free and complete credit report from each CRA annually.

Just do a pull once a year. Doing a consumer pull does not affect your credit score in any way.

I highly commend you for your credit knowledge at such an early age. 

[Anonymous]

Just make sure when you use the govt. free report website that you pull all 3 at once...

I found out the hard way by pulling 1 report in Feb. and then trying to pull another just last week........Even though it was a different Bureau they told me I had already pulled for the year.

[Anonymous]

You might benefit from my chart here:

http://www.allaboutthebenjamins.org/youngandstarting.html

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Just make sure when you use the govt. free report website that you pull all 3 at once...

I found out the hard way by pulling 1 report in Feb. and then trying to pull another just last week........Even though it was a different Bureau they told me I had already pulled for the year.

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Wow, that's a new one on me! I know I've read posts about people staggering their pulls through the year, every four months.

That stinks.