How To Get A Free Experian FICO Credit Score

By MoneyBlueBook

Updated Review Of Ways To Get Your Experian FICO Credit Score Now

For credit report and FICO credit score junkies like myself, I was completed stunned and floored when I heard the official announcement that the Experian credit reporting agency would no longer be making its Experian FICO credit score available to consumers from hereon, effective February 14, 2009 (Valentine's Day no less). However, in an odd marketing twist, the Experian FICO scores would continue to be made available to lenders and businesses - just not to the hapless consumers who are actually concerned about their own personal finances.

For those who work hard at monitoring their credit reports and credit scores, and take diligent steps to ensure the maintenance of perpetually high FICO's, this news release exploded into our midst like a cruel bomb shell. So am I overreacting or is this move by Experian as significant as I'm seemingly making it out to be?

Lack Of Access To Experian FICO Credit Scores Ultimately Favors Lenders and Hurts Consumers

At a time when banks have grown extra stingy when it comes to lending money and it's becoming even more important for consumers like you and I to monitor our credit reports and credit scores regularly, we are now losing yet another option of doing so. Experian is one of the three major credit reporting agencies that maintain massive historical databases of how individuals and businesses handle credit usage responsibilities. Fair Isaac Corporation is the company that developed the popular and widely used FICO credit score,

By Joe Taylor Jr.

That pirate band from the seafood restaurant has changed its tune. For years, singer-songwriter Eric Violette portrayed the harried lead singer of a musical group forced into a series of dead end jobs and sticky situations because they didn't keep close enough watch over their credit reports. When new federal rules prohibited credit bureaus from marketing "free credit reports" in conjunction with subscription services came out these commercials disappeared from the airways.

Since nearly everything today from getting a mortgage, applying for a credit card, and even getting a job depends on your credit score, where can you get free information about your credit?

Not from the government

Free FICO scores aren't included in the government mandated credit reports offered by AnnualCreditReport.com. That's because the contents of your free credit report are facts, while any credit score results from passing those facts through proprietary risk equations. Although lawmakers like to debate over rules that would make credit scores free to consumers, it still costs money to see the same three-digit numbers that banks use to determine creditworthiness.

Even though most free credit score websites don't offer access to "real" FICO scores, the credit models they use closely resemble the scores that lenders would see when reviewing your credit profile.

So where are good places to look to get your credit score?

By MoneyBlueBook

Borrow Money Or Invest In Interest Earning P2P Loans With Lending Club

With the lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve in response to the current economic climate to the lowest levels we have seen in years, the interest rates offered by high yield savings accounts and high interest certificate of deposits are now simply not as attractive as they once were, only a few years ago. With the stock market still suffering from unstable price swings and massive volatility across all sectors, it makes present day sense to look towards alternative investment ideas to make some money.

While I have been a quiet Lending Club member for a few years now since the online company opens its doors to loan investors, I haven't felt the need to review the program until now. Until recently, the top high yield savings account and best CD rates at most banking institutions offered a reliably consistent rate of return on deposits. But with market turmoil ever present and the specter of worsening bank failures looming, I've begun to turn my attention to other investment possibilities in an attempt to diversify my portfolio risk and seek a higher rate of return. The ability to earn a reasonably competitive interest income with the added ability to diversify risk via peer to peer lending networks like Lending Club and Prosper is becoming more and more attractive. At the very least, P2P lending programs offer potential profit seeking investors like myself the ability to play the role of the

By MoneyBlueBook

Special Offer: 30% Off Using MyFICO Coupon Discount�� Code - MYFICOIS8, Or 20% Off With�� - CPPSAVINGS

As someone who believes the FICO credit score is the single most important number in any person's financial life, I track my own credit score and FICO changes closely and religiously. While admittedly a rather mundane and financially nerdy task, the routine monitoring of one's credit score has far reaching financial benefits beyond just ensuring one's continuous ability to apply for cheap credit or qualify for a discount loan at great rates. A high FICO credit score has broad ramifications that affect everything from your ability to get the best home mortgage rates and the cheapest car insurance premiums, to your capability of stopping identity theft in its tracks. For those that share my appreciation of maintaining a perpetually high FICO score, the practice is made easier with convenient and user-friendly online tracking tools that provide periodic email updates on credit score changes with updated and archived graphs that trace credit score changes over time.

By MoneyBlueBook

Recession? What Recession? Presenting - The New Visa Black Credit Card

Currently, the economy is undergoing a major recession, with consumer spending tanking, and dire ramifications emerging for the future of our financial and banking systems. But if you examined the newly released promotional material and advertisement literature for the new Visa Black Card, you might have thought otherwise. With an eye popping annual fee and lavish credit card perks oozing to great excess, this new credit card offer from the renown Barclays Bank definitely does not reflect the current mainstream economic sentiment.

The Original Black Card Craze

Years ago, the first card to emerge and promote itself through rumors and word of mouth marketing as the ultimate status symbol for high net worth spenders - was the American Express Centurion Black Card. With its extravagant spending perks and incredibly high credit limits, enough to buy a few palatial mansions and small estates with just a few card swipes, the Amex Black Centurion Card was considered to be the ultimate materialistic status symbol of its day, at least to those superficial few that actually cared about those types of things. Known as the first true "Black Card", the Amex Centurion program's strong reputation of exclusivity enabled it to attract the interest of a certain wealthy and high pedigree clientele - invite-only applicants, who were willing to spend more than $250,000 a year on their existing American Express credit cards and pay an annual fee of $2,500 to gain entrance into the exclusive program.

The

By MoneyBlueBook

Review Of Free Tax Filing Software Options - TurboTax, TaxCut, and TaxAct

Tax day is a stressful and confusing time for many people as we scramble around with our W-2's and 1040 forms, but it doesn't have to be. Currently, there is a wealth of free tax filing resources available to help people like us with timely and accurate tax preparation, courtesy of organizations like the IRS and the U.S. government. Thus, even those those who do not have the extra financial means to afford premium tax software programs like TurboTax and Taxcut still have a wide selection of competent tax assistance programs at their disposal. Depending on their individual demographics such as age or income, and depending on the availability of other special status factors such as active duty in the armed services, certain taxpayers may even qualify for free federal government sponsored tax preparation assistance and free tax filing.

Free Tax Filing With IRS Free File Offers and Non Profit Volunteer Tax Preparation Services

The various free tax preparation and free tax filing services available can be broken down into two broad categories - offers that stem from the federal government's partnership program to bring affordable partially subsidized tax filing services to lower income people, and offers that are provided by volunteer tax organizations funded by non-profit interest groups.

Taxpayers who wish to prepare and file their taxes electronically for free can take advantage of the "Free File" tax return preparation program provided by private tax vendors such as Turbo Tax, Tax Cut, and Tax Act,