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"I wrote about the importance of keeping tabs on your credit report a couple weeks ago but pointed out that the free reports available through annualcreditreport.com don&amp;#039;t contain the all-important credit score. While it&amp;#039;s true you don&amp;#039;t really need to know this number unless you&amp;#039;re applying for a mortgage, loan, or other line of credit, it&amp;#039;s certainly gives you a good snapshot of where you stand financially. Enter CreditSesame.com, a website that monitors and informs you of your score every month for free! Its business model is similar to Mint.com and BillShrink.com: You enter in your personal info (don&amp;#039;t worry, the site uses bank-level encryption), and CreditSesame.com pulls your credit report and score from its partner, Experian. (To be clear: The number \u2014 ranging from 300 to 830 \u2014 isn&amp;#039;t your official FICO score that&amp;#039;s most often used by lenders and for which you&amp;#039;d have to pay for regular monitoring, but a close approximation.) You&amp;#039;ll also see a detailed analysis of what components of your credit are good, and which need improvement. Further, the site analyzes your current loans, mortgage, and/or home value (if applicable) and compares them to the loan offerings from the banks in its database (currently, it has access to the top lenders that account for 80% of the U.S. market). If it finds a better offer (say, a lower interest rate), it tells you so. And if you end up making the recommended switch, the site gets a referral bonus \u2014 this is how they make money and why your score is free to you, though it promises it collect the same fee from all lenders, so none gets preferential treatment.  Credit Sesame&amp;#039;s latest offering, launched yesterday, is its &amp;quot;Credit Badge&amp;quot; program. The better your credit score, the more prestigious the badge you earn, with Guru indicating the ultimate in credit savvy. Their pitch: Much like businesses display icons certifying their Better Business Bureau or VeriSign memberships, regular folk can display the Credit Sesame badge on sites like LinkedIn.com (fact: 60% of employers check prospective employees&amp;#039; credit) or have it in their e-mail signature as proof of their good financial standing. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/institute/a24441/free-credit-score/>