Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future

From the Back Cover
Your Credit Score

"Excellent book! Insightful, well written, and surprisingly interesting! Liz Pulliam Weston has done an outstanding job demystifying an often intimidating and frustrating topic for the benefit of all consumers." —Eric Tyson, syndicated columnist and best-selling author of Personal Finance for Dummies

"In a country where consumers increasingly pay more when they have bad credit, Liz Pulliam Weston's book provides excellent tips and advice on ways to improve your credit history and raise your credit score. If you just apply one or two of her insightful suggestions, you'll save many times the cost of this book."—Ilyce R. Glink, financial reporter, talk show host, and best-selling author of 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask

"Your credit score can save you money or cost you money—sometimes a lot of money. Yet, most people don't even know their scores, much less know how to make them better. Liz Pulliam Weston can help you fix that. In this easy-to-understand guide you'll learn how to make sure your score helps you get the best deal on loans and insurance. You can't afford not to read it."

—Gerri Detweiler, consumer advocate and founder of UltimateCredit.com

A complete action plan for improving your credit score—starting today!

Information that could save you thousands on credit and insurance... even help you get your next job!

Explains the rules, explodes the myths!

Up-to-the-minute information on today's radically new credit scoring system from MSN/L.A. Times personal finance journalist Liz Pulliam Weston.
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About the Author
Author Bio: Your Credit ScoreYour Credit ScoreAuthor Bio

Liz Pulliam Weston is a personal finance columnist whose twice-weekly columns for MSN Money reach more than six million people each month. She's also the author of the question-and-answer column Money Talk, which appears in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers throughout the country. Weston is a weekly guest on CNBC's Power Lunch and has appeared on NBC, Fine Living, PAX TV, and other networks.

Formerly a personal finance writer for the Times, Weston has won numerous reporting awards. She was part of a three-member writing team that won a Gerald Loeb Award for coverage of the Comparator Systems penny stock scandal in 1997. She also was a member of the Anchorage Daily News team that won a Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service in 1989 for coverage of the alcoholism epidemic among native Alaskans.

Weston is a graduate of the certified financial planner training program at University of California, Irvine. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Information that could save you thousands on credit and insurance...

...even help you get your next job!

Explains the rules, explodes the myths!

Up-to-the-minute information on today's radically new credit scoring system

from MSN/L.A. Times

personal finance journalist Liz Pulliam Weston

Your Credit Score:

How to Fix, Improve, and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial FutureLiz Pulliam Weston

Your credit score. It's a simple three-digit number, but it's rapidly becoming the most important number in your life.

It dictates whether you'll get credit, and what you'll pay. A bad credit score could cost you thousands on your next house or car. Insurers use it to set premiums. Landlords use it to choose renters. You must understand it. But there's an immense amount of misinformation, obsolete data, and flat-out nonsense out theremdand some of it can cost you a fortune.

In Your Credit Score, MSN/L.A. Times personal finance journalist Liz Pulliam Weston comes to the rescue with specific, up-to-date answers you can trust. Weston explains how to bounce back from bad credit or bankruptcymdand tells you exactly how credit counseling, debt negotiation, and other credit "solutions" can affect your score. Along the way, Weston exposes the myths about credit scoring that can cost you real money if you fall for them.

Your Credit Score gives you what you need most: an action plan for building your credit, fixing it, and maintaining itmdstarting today!How many credit cards should you have... ..and what should you know about carrying balances?Whichcredit inquiries hurt your score? ...and which don't? Will closing accounts really help your credit score? You may be surprised at the answer.How credit counseling doesmdand doesn'tmdaffect your score Crucial new information, straight from the source.The fastest way to improve your credit score Who can actually helpmdand who'll rip you off?What you should do before you apply for a mortgage An action plan that could save you thousands of dollars.

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