The most popular topic on the Cartalk blog is credit. We've covered a broad range of credit related subjects from "Five Questions to Ask Your Credit Specialist" to "What Credit Score Do You Need to Get a Good Deal When Buying a Car?".

Our topic today is about monitoring your credit. We're going to show you 3 ways to watch and track your credit score. 

1. Credit Monitoring Services

The most obvious strategy is to use a credit monitoring service. The monitoring space is getting crowded wth costly programs these days, but there are still a few free options that give tons of value. For example, Credit Karma and Credit Sesame both monitor your credit for free. Also, remember you can get a free credit report each year from annualcreditreport.com.

2. Personal Finance Software

Using services like Mint or Prosper Daily to track all of your transactions in one place makes easier to see if any suspicious charges show up. These tools roll up all your accounts from various institutions like banks and credit cards so you have better visibility of you spending. Most of these services also have alerts. You can set up an email or text to notify you of any red-flag purchases. 

3. Don't Forget Your Bank. 

As we've mentioned above, there are a lot of great tools out there to track your credit. Before you jump into the app store, take a look at the service offerings from your bank or credit card institution. One benefit here is you don't have to give your information to a third party. And even if your financial institution doesn't have credit monitoring, it almost certainly has transaction alerts. You can set these up for when your account hits a certain balance, for foreign transactions and more. 

Now you have three great ways to keep an eye on your credit.

As always, if you have any further questions, hit the contact us button above or give us a call.