Editor's note: This is a transcript of the audio file.

Few things in life are free ... except your credit report. I'm Kristin Arnold with your Bankrate.com Personal Finance Minute.

Your credit report says a lot about your financial life. It's basically a record of a person's past borrowing and repaying.

There's no catch to get your free report. You simply have to log onto annualcreditreport.com, select your current state, and then fill out the form to establish your identity such as name, birth date, social security number and address.

You can choose which credit reporting company you want to pull your report from -- TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. It's recommended that you space reports four months apart to make sure you can monitor and match up reports to confirm and possibly dispute the information contained in them.

You can also request your report via phone or snail mail. Remember that annualcreditreport.com is the only authorized source to obtain a FREE credit report.

To learn more about credit reports log onto Bankrate.com. I'm Kristin Arnold.