Jump-Start Your Credit: How to Monitor Your Credit for Free
Your credit history can affect how much you pay for car or home insurance, your ability to rent a house or an apartment and even your chances of getting some…
Bev O'Shea
Bev O’Shea writes about consumer credit for NerdWallet. She has been a speaker at FinCon, a national personal finance conference. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, MarketWatch, USA Today and MSN Money, and on the Associated Press wire. Her credit score was briefly a perfect 850, she won’t co-sign, even for her children, and she is a serial mortgage refinancer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: BeverlyOShea
Posts by Bev O'Shea:
Does Breaking a Lease Hurt Your Credit?
Breaking a lease won’t hurt your credit score if your landlord agrees that you have paid everything you owe, including penalties such as a fee for early termination, plus the…
Jump-Start Your Credit: Find and Fix Errors on Your Credit Report
Checking your credit reports can help you ensure that the information being used to calculate your credit scores is accurate and up to date. That’s valuable when you’re working on…
Jump-Start Your Credit: Get Your Credit Reports
Credit scores are designed to help lenders understand how likely you are to repay borrowed money. Credit-scoring companies apply a mathematical formula to data about how you’ve handled credit in…
Jump-Start Your Credit: Develop 2 Essential Habits
Your current credit score is the starting point for your journey toward building credit or restoring it after a setback. The next step is understanding how the way you handle…
Jump-Start Your Credit: Begin With a Free Credit Score
Like many people who set money goals for 2021, you may have your eye on a better credit score. But it can feel like such a big job that it’s hard…
Take These Cards Out of Your Wallet Right Now
Decluttering your wallet can give you a quick sense of accomplishment in the new year. You can check a task off your list and feel more organized and safer. A…
Scam Alert: Second Relief Bill, Vaccine Rollout Attract Fraudsters
One side effect of the coronavirus pandemic is an abundance of criminals trying to take advantage of people. The arrival of vaccines and a second round of relief payments bring…
How to Save the Holidays: More Joy, Less Cash
The holiday season is getting closer — and wallets lighter. Still, there are unpurchased gifts left on your list. Here’s how to come up with presents that will delight recipients without…
How to Protect Your Credit When Shopping for the Holidays
The rules for protecting credit during the holidays usually don’t vary much from year to year, but in 2020, COVID-19 has changed where and how we shop. And money’s tight…
