Interesting Reading: What You Get For $12.99

I haven’t looked at them in three and a half years and I probably wouldn’t have looked at them now if it hadn’t been for Helpful Chipper Spencer at Wells Fargo who sold me on the concept back on the 6th when we had our meeting at the bank’s branch and I set up another savings account. For $12.99, he said, you couldn’t go wrong with the bank’s Complete Identity Theft Package which included a detailed, personalized look at your credit history, including the revelation of your credit scores by the major three credit reporting companies. I had nothing to lose, he said. I’d get the first report free, and he’d call me (he even made a note to do so, right there and then, in his Outlook calendar) before the service renewed, to see if I wanted to cancel. “In this day and age,” he said somberly, “you can't keep too close a handle on your credit scores.” Or too close a handle on your identity, apparently, although I wasn’t clear exactly why anyone would want mine, other than me.

I had to agree he was probably right, considering I hadn’t inquired into my credit since June of 2006 when I bought my place. Before then, I hadn’t inquired into it since Brent and I bought the house in Willowcreek in 2000, and before that I hadn’t given it so much as a passing thought since the Denver house in 1997 and the first Salt Lake house in 1992. I did remember being very pleased with the scores in 2006, as had been my mortgage lender, the same company currently selling me on Identity Theft Protection. So sure, I told Spencer. Sign me up, take my $12.99, and I’ll look forward to receiving the information.

It arrived last night, and looked like a fairly substantial magazine. I was tempted to go through it right away, but first things first. Basil had to go out, and both the new Mad Magazine and this month’s Oprah had arrived in the same batch of mail, so it had to wait an hour or so. My priorities, as you can see, are a little skewed when it comes to ‘prioritizing’ the mail. Twisted humor first (and well worth it, given Mad’s hilarious “Blunder Woman” cartoon based on Sarah Palin, who has, they said, ‘decided to go rogue, rogue apparently being the Eskimo word for stupid’) living my best life with Oprah’s help immediately following. Then and only then, credit scores and reporting.

I have to say I was as happy with them as I’d been in 2006. It was a good feeling to know, in black and white, that they were very good. Which meant that if I needed to refinance a mortgage, get a different car, or take out a loan, my odds were good. Which was great to know, it just didn’t appeal to me at all as a viable idea. I suppose it comes from childhood, back in the days when even as young as 12 my dad had instituted a ‘fund matching’ program on my savings passbook. He’d ‘match’ every $100 I put away, which was huge at the time, considering earning a hundred bucks equated to roughly a hundred hours of babysitting neighbor kids on the weekends. At heart, I’d rather put money away than spend it and I’m glad I’m that way. When the divorce came through and I received my share of retirement investments from Brent, it went immediately into the hands of a financial planner. I’m a huge fan of my 401(k) through work, and have thoroughly enjoyed, in my own strange way, moving money into the new savings account via electronic banking. I’m not entirely sure if that’s due to any zealousness for saving or just being enamored of moving money around with the click of a button, after so many years of writing out actual checks, which I never liked. I guess you could say the only major purchase I’ve made in the last three and a half years was leather furniture, but even at that I did it knowing when you buy leather, you’re set for at least twenty years of use.

I suppose I am the same as Holly described herself, “a little more frugal with my money than most”, although like her, I’m not averse to the impulse buy (most of which have happened in the ladie’s boutique at work, thus explaining my Knight In Shining Armor sculpture and ‘Five Dogs Doing The Cha Cha’ that matched the one found in one of our Presidential Suites), yet the majority of them are marked down substantially (honestly, would anyone but me have bought the shining knight, anyway?) or seriously on sale. I’m more one for bargains than big purchases, even when that means spending an entire afternoon waking through an antique show to find one ring, two brooches, and an out of print book, as I did a few weeks ago. I guess, in thinking about it, I’m glad about this.

It’s good information to have and I owe some thanks to Helpful Chipper Spencer for pointing me in the right direction. I am not, however, at all sure I’m going to renew the service. I like it so far, it’s just the letting go of $12.99 every month that seems a little excessive.

Maybe I’ll keep it if I can get him to discount the rate a bit.