The Boring Newsletter, 2/4/2024 🧊

Hi Friendos,

This is called The Boring Newsletter and this week I am here to deliver!

First up: tax season has officially begun! This past Monday, January 29^th was opening day. That means if you’ve received all your necessary tax forms (like W-2’s and 1099’s), you can go ahead and file. You could Direct File with the IRS if you qualify for this year’s pilot program, see if you qualify for free tax filing software, or consider if you’d like to seek tax prep help through the IRS VITA program (volunteer income tax assistance). If this year you’d like to learn how to self-prepare and would like a guide, I hope you’ll consider booking a session with me.

Second: do you have smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms in your home?

• If not, please buy some. If you rent, you can mount them with command strips and keep them when you move out.
• If you do have them, have you tested them in the last year? If the battery’s dead it can’t help save your life. Pro tip: wear earplugs while testing.

Third: Need any doctor check-ups? Tetanus, flu, measles, COVID, shingles, or other vaccines? Pap test, colonoscopy? My New Year’s resolution this year was to do all of my recommended check-ups and preventative care (I admit that I got behind on a couple of items) and I’ve already had some appointments and others are on the calendar. I am so grateful to have medical coverage.

Fourth and last up: are your credit reports frozen? What’s that? Well…

I know you never gave permission for the credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion) to scoop up all your financial data and use it to make money for themselves. Me neither! But they do it anyway. And if someone wants to do you dirty with identify theft, they might be able to apply for a credit card or a loan in your name if your credit reports are not locked down. Thus, the credit freeze.

If you already know all about this and just need to put a freeze in place (which is free), here are the key links, one per credit bureau.

• Equifax: https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/
• Experian: https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
• Transunion: https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze

Usually, when people write about What You Can Do about identity theft, they mention fraud alerts that give you a heads up after something fishy just happened. How about, keep it from happening in the first place? A credit freeze means that your credit report is restricted, so if someone nefarious applies for credit in your name, they’re completely boxed out.

If your credit is not frozen, you should do that right now! With all 3 bureaus! It’s super boring and you should do it anyway. Identity theft can be a truly horrible experience so it really is worth the ounce of prevention. Can someone still hack your info and steal your identity? Of course it’s still possible, but having a freeze in place is a lot better than doing nothing.

After you have the freeze in place, anytime you want someone else to have access to your credit report, you’ll need to do a free “temporary lift,” aka “thaw.” That is also boring, but I’ve done it tons of times and now I can do a temporary lift of all 3 of my accounts in under 5 minutes. Don’t believe me? Well, I applied for a credit card last weekend and timed it on my phone! So I could show it to you!

Want to read more about credit freezes? Nerdwallet has you covered: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-credit.

Keeping it boring in February,

-Stephanie