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Awesome Pet-Friendly Apartments in Austin
Treat your best friend to the amenities they deserve at one of these pet-friendly apartment complexes.
The post Awesome Pet-Friendly Apartments in Austin appeared first on The Rent. Blog : A Renterâs Guide for Tips & Advice.
How to Dispute Mistakes On Your Credit Report
There are several obvious reasons to give a hoot about your credit score, and very few reasons you should ignore it. After all, you’ll need a good credit score and a solid credit history if you ever plan to purchase a home or take out an auto loan. A bad credit score can even come back to bite you if you want to rent an apartment or apply for certain jobs.
But your score isn’t the only detail you need to pay attention to. You also need to keep an eye on your credit report — the document that lists your formal credit history including any accounts you have open, balances due, and payments you’ve made.
Your report and your score are intricately intertwined. If bad information gets on your credit report due to fraud or misreporting, this can easily cause your credit score to nosedive. Likewise, a clear credit report with nothing but true (and positive) information can help your credit score reach greater heights.
That’s why, every single year, you should get a free copy of your credit report from all three credit reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Fortunately, this part is easy to accomplish via AnnualCreditReport.com.
How to dispute information on your credit report
Once you have a copy of your credit report from all three bureaus, you’ll want to look over all the details to make sure they’re correct. Incorrect information you might notice on your report may include:
- Errors regarding your name or personal information
- Accounts that aren’t even yours
- Accounts belonging to someone with a name that is similar to yours
- Closed accounts that are reported as open
- Incorrectly reported late payments
- Accounts listed more than once
- Incorrect balances on accounts
- Incorrect credit limits on accounts
Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), both the credit bureau and whoever is providing them with information are responsible for correcting misinformation on your credit report. This means that, if a specific retailer or bank is reporting an account that isn’t yours or an incorrect balance, both the credit bureau and the retailer or bank have to work together to make things right.
If you find an error, here are the steps you should take right away:
Inform the credit bureau with the incorrect information of the mistake
The first step you should take is informing the credit reporting agency of their error, keeping in mind that it’s possible not all the credit bureaus will have the same information. You should let them know about the mistake in writing, taking special care to list important details about the mistake with proper documentation. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) even offers a sample letter you can use if you need help.
Note that credit bureaus usually have 30 days to investigate your claim and they are required to get back to you with a response. They are also required to forward the information you sent them to the provider who shared the information with them in the first place.
Inform whoever provided the information of the mistake
You’ll also want to provide the company reporting the incorrect information with copies of any documentation that prove an error has occurred. Make sure to include all details required to prove your claim along with copies of documentation that backs you up. The FTC offers another sample dispute letter you can use for this instance.
Watch for your credit report to be updated
Generally speaking, credit reporting agencies are required to inform you in writing of the results of your case. They are also legally required to give you another free copy of your credit report if your dispute caused a permanent change.
You also have the option to ask the credit bureau to send notices of any corrections to anyone who has requested your credit report within the last six months. You can even have an updated copy sent to anyone who has asked for a modified version of your credit report for reasons regarding employment.
Caring about your credit
While the steps above may sound tedious, it’s crucial to understand the damage incorrect information on your credit report can do. If you have inaccurate late payments on your report, for example, you could see your credit score plummet through no fault of your own. And if there are accounts on your credit report that aren’t even yours, that could signify a much larger problem, such as outright identity theft.
Fortunately, the small amount of time required to dispute an item on your credit report really can pay off in a big way. After all, any negative information you manage to get wiped clean should immediately stop dragging your score down.
However, you should also note that you’ll only be able to get false negative information removed from your credit reports. Any damaging information that’s true will have to linger on your report until enough time has passed. Generally speaking, negative information and reporting can remain on your credit report for up to seven years and bankruptcy can stay on your report for 10 years.
The bottom line
Errors happen all the time, and they may never be uncovered if you don’t find them yourself. In addition to staying on top of your credit reports, it can help to sign up for a free service that gives you updates on new accounts in your name or fluctuations in your credit score. CreditKarma.com and CreditSesame.com are two that offer a similar free service with these features, so they are both worth checking out.
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Student Loan Calculator
For many Americans, student loans can be one of the most frustrating parts of your personal finances. And paying them off is likely one of your top personal finance priorities. However, for many, it can be hard to know how long your loans will last, or what your repayment timeline might look like. Thatâs why
The post Student Loan Calculator appeared first on MintLife Blog.
Inside jobs: What do people do all day?
Last week, I found myself revisiting the fantastic Inside Jobs project from The Atlantic. Atlantic staffers interviewed 103 American workers from all walks of life. The magazine then collected those interviews into a single, unified website.
Here’s how one of the project’s leaders describes her aims:
So much of my aspiration for this project was to hear from people affected by the realities that business writers so often cover: what it’s like to be a minority in a workplace, or the challenges of working parenthood, or the struggle to remain relevant as an industry changes. And we succeeded in finding those types of stories â for example, the three female lawyers who started their own firm, or the coal miner who is adapting to the focus on clean energy.
The ones that most stuck with me most were the people in the jobs many consider mundane, such as the janitor who so acutely equated people’s respect for his job with their ability to throw away their own trash, or workers outside of the traditional economy, such as the stay-at-home mother who struggled to find her place in a feminist movement that emphasizes womenâs professional achievements.
The Inside Jobs website has a fun layout. Each interview has its own page. From the main index, you can filter stories by subject, or filter workers by industry, age, or other demographic factors. Or, if you’re like me, you can simply scroll down and click on any of the 103 worker portraits to read a random interview.
What Do People Do All Day?
The Inside Jobs project reminds me of one of my favorite books from childhood, Richard Scarry’s classic What Do People Do All Day? I’ve always been fascinated by the vast variety of work available to people, and how different each job is from every other job. Sure, there’s a degree of sameness, but there are tons of differences.
- As a blogger, I sit at home all day and write. In a way, it’s like I’m an artist (but without any sort of actual artistry). Everything about Get Rich Slowly comes from me. If I don’t work, nothing happens here. (Actually, this isn’t quite true anymore. Nowadays, Rachel manages social media and Tom is handling business development.)
- This process is similar to the one faced by my friends who are entrepreneurs or professionals. When you own your own business, it’s up to you to make it succeed. When you have your own accounting firm or law office, it’s up to you to build your reputation and client base.
- Then there are folks like my girlfriend Kim, who works as a dental hygienist. Whereas I see nobody all day long, she sees tons of new patients every day she works. Her work is physically demanding; mine is not.
- I have other friends who are band teachers and forensic chemists. I know engineers and salesmen and psychiatrists. I know lost of financial planners, of course, as well as factory foremen and county bureaucrats and hospital administrators.
It’s just like Richard Scarry taught me when I was a pre-schooler: Everyone is a worker.
And it’s just like Brenda Ueland taught me (in a book about writing, of all places): Everyone is talented, original, and has something important to say. Itâs the personal histories that make up history (by which I mean the grand tapestry of world events). Without your story â and mine â the larger story doesnât exist. The mass movements of kingdoms and cultures are built on our backs.
Maybe that’s why I like oral histories so much.
Speaking of which, the Inside Jobs project naturally reminds me (and many others) of the work of journalist Studs Terkel.
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This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.