One of your most important things in your financial life is your “FICO score”:http://www.myfico.com/Downloads/Files/myFICO_UYFS_Booklet.pdf. It is essentially fiscal GPA that measures how worthy of credit you are based upon several factors. It is imperative to know what yours is. Unfortunately, each time your FICO score is “officially requested”:http://www.myfico.com/Products/Products.aspx it “decreases”:http://www.fico.org/HowScoreCountsInquiries.aspx. Thanks to a great “FICO score estimator”:http://bankrate.com/brm/fico/calc.asp?lpid=BKRATE29 at “bankrate.com”:www.bankrate.com, you can get an accurate estimated range of where you’re at so you can “learn to improve it”:http://www.realtor.org/realtororg.nsf/pages/myFICO2?OpenDocument and compare yourself to the “median”:http://www.creditscoring.com/. Another thing you should get annually is your “free credit report”:www.annualcreditreport.com from one of “three agencies”:http://www.legit411.com/credit-card-bureaus.html. By monitoring both your GPA and report card, you’re more secure from “identity theft”:http://duenos.net/article/156/UseProtectionAgainstIDThieves and exponentially more attractive to loaners.