Pam jokingly refers to Clark Howard as my “man crush”. I do really like listening to his podcast and I definitely often recite some of his financial wisdom to other people around me. For example, today as we were tearing down our equipment from Tapestry‘s Sunday morning gathering I talked with a couple of “threads” concerning some of Clark’s advice. In this case the advice was to freeze your credit.
Here’s Clark Howard’s guide on freezing and thawing your credit at each of the three major agencies.
I wish it didn’t cost anything for us to freeze our credit because it shouldn’t. The credit agencies should not be able to charge me to keep them from selling personal information they have about me that I didn’t give them permission to gather. Perhaps the state that you live in agrees with this sentiment and has told the agencies that they can’t charge you for the freeze or the thaw. Wisconsin allows each agency to charge $10 for freezes and thaws. Still it is money well spent because it is the best way to protect your credit. It keeps people from being able to pretend to be you and take loans or apply for credit cards in your name.
Anyhow, go read Clark Howard’s post and then freeze your credit.