Credit monitoring systems keep track of your files with one or more of the credit-reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) and notify you when certain changes occur. The service is offered by some of the credit reporting agencies themselves as well as other companies. The price varies depending on how many agencies are being monitored and whether it is bundled with other services, but it can easily exceed $100 per year.

There’s not much need to buy credit monitoring now that you can do it yourself for free. You can get a copy once every 12 months from each of the three credit-reporting agencies at www.annualcreditreport.com. Spread out requests throughout the year. For example, get a copy from Experian in January, from Equifax in May and from Trans Union in September.