Behind that top heavy exterior lurks an insatiable lust for real estate, finery and baubles for her “boyfriend.” Now the note just kicked up on the beach house and Barbie is juggling madly trying to keep Ken in tasteful earrings.

A just released survey by the Identity Theft Assistance Center finds that the main way to know when your identity is stolen is through a contact from your financial services company - as in, credit card or bank. Almost 62% of people polled learned of ID theft this way, and another 23% were notified by another financial services company (presumably not their own). The lesson here appears to be with a little proactive effort (like checking your credit report) in addition to standard notifications, you can likely reduce your time-to-discovery to a bare minimum.

Other ways people found out included:

     credit purchase denied, stolen purse/wallet,
     during loan application process, checked online
     account, reviewed credit report, burglary,
     contacted bank for general information and was
     informed of activity...

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In an absolutely fascinating article Michelle Singletary of NPR looks at an ugly reality most parents don't even realize: their kids are living in financial dreamland. A survey by Charles Schwab & Co. and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Americ reveals that teens are totally delusional about what sort of money they'll be making as adults. The teens on average expected to make $145,500 with boys figuring they'd rack up $173,000 while girls sadly expected less but still a healthy $114,200.

Hmmm...considering the median U.S. household income is under $50k that's a lot of disappointed youngsters who are expecting Santa to leave a higher salary under the money tree.

Btw, only 14% of Americans make between $100k - $200k

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Found a good article on raising credit scores that goes into great detail about debt to credit ratio, or the amount of debt you have relative to your credit card limits. It offers many creative ways to get around this critical percentage which represents how much of your available credit you are using. Maybe a few ideas are a bit too creative but they may represent the insider secrets of credit repair outfits. Read more

If you've been stung by a low credit score that interfered with your ability to get a loan, it's tempting to engage a credit repair company for help; but beware - their efforts to "help" may not be strictly on the level. One of the newest tactics to improve bad credit reports is to use "aged credit accounts." Companies literally rent you good credit by having you signed on as an authorized user on somebody else's long term credit account that is in good standing - by leveraging the old account's good marks, the second person's credit improves. Watch out - like all loopholes this will eventually close and criminal penalties may not be far behind.

Read moreout this in depth in this article.

People sometimes seem to get into a frothing rage when confronting the implacable face of credit bureaus. At least this gentleman did, who has been dueling with Equifax apparently. You'll also find some thoughtful board posts after the article:

"Equifax continues to screw up Philip's credit rating by reporting a late payment on a mortgage that was satisfied in full over a year ago.

He's sent over 9 letters, of increasing vitriol, asking, begging, cajoling, demanding and haranguing Equifax to please fix his credit report. He's sent letters from Washington Mutual clearing his name..." Read more

We've seen the movie The Secret around the office and thought that there were some applications for people who are trying to improve their credit so we put together top 6 Credit Secrets of the Rich. You'll learn the one easy thing you can do to radically improve your score within 6 months even if you've had a bankruptcy.

Read our article:

http://www.thecredittruth.org/articles/credit-secrets-of-the-rich.aspx

Like you don't have enough to do between the caterer and complaints about the bridesmaid dresses. Still, you can't overlook the importance of merging two households and two financial histories. You've learned here how easy it is to check your free credit report - and prior to marriage is one of those milestone times that you really need to share information.

Here's a good article that spells out all the marriage/credit dimensions. Enjoy...

"Good credit can make all the difference in obtaining a low interest rate on a mortgage and other loans you will want to take out as husband and wife. And if there's credit trouble, the sooner you start repairing the damage, the better." Continue Reading