building credit

[Micro2Macro]

only have a credit check done if absolutely necessary. having too many will lower your score

[NightGizmo]

only have a credit check done if absolutely necessary. having too many will lower your score

Good point, this is true. Unless you're the one requesting it -- you're allowed to request your own credit history without impacting your score (I forget if that's unlimited, or only once a year won't hurt you). If you don't care about your score, you can get a free report once a year from each credit bureau. If you want to see your score, you have to pay a small fee.

I try to request mine once a year, to make sure nothing screwy shows up on the report (and I pay to see my score, it's nice seeing the number go up). Actually, I'm overdue to run it again, it's on my list of to-dos.