2008 is almost upon us and some of us are making resolutions (and let's face it, if you do make resolutions, something financial is # 1 or #2 with to lose weight as the other resolution ...we ALL do it at some point in our lives!) .

If you haven't already, please check your credit report!

You are entitled to 1 free credit report a year (don't pay the extra for your score, that some comapnies offer). Just google free credit report and you'll get a multitude of companies that do it for you (I personally like www.annualcreditreport.com and highly reccommend it) . Check it for errors and get them taken care of...you can even dispute it right online.

Make sure all your personal information is correct and your account info is correct (ie, if you have no unpaid balance, but one is being reported, or the account was closed and it is still isted as open a year later, or even if the account isn't yours (it happens!)).

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You are so right on this. Last year, as we were getting ready to apply for a loan on our house, I pulled our credit report and saw a collections for almost $2000.00! Turns out, a car that we "sold" (person never did pay us), about 5 years ago, had been abandoned in the next state over. When the tow company pulled the information on the car my name came up for some reason. I had moved since the days of owning this car and I never received any notice and they sent it to collections! Also, it happening so long ago, I didn't have any paperwork on this car any longer.

Thankfully I was able to go to DMV and they were able to show that the car was no longer in my name and hadn't been for many years. It took some letters / faxes / phonecalls / and emails but we did straighten it out.

So very stressful as we were getting ready for our loan and I had just found out I was pregnant like two days before!

I'm glad you were able to have the situation over the car straightened out, MelsB. In this day and age, it's very important to check your credit report. There's an identity theft situation that we found out about recently. One mom's daughter and/or daughter's husband (not sure which one did this) applied for a CC in her name and made a few payments by checks on a closed account. I don't know if she's pressed charges or not, but unfortunately, identity thefts can hit close to home.