Why pay $10 or $20 a month for something you can do yourself? There is absolutely no reason. You can do exactly what identity theft protection companies do at a fraction of the cost (most of it is free anyway) and save that money for something more useful. For a full explanation of what you need to do, check out BFP’s Do It Yourself Identity Theft Protection guide.

Step one of getting rid of all that junk mail, that dangerous identity theft risk junk mail, is to opt out of it at OptOutPrescreen.com. That gets rid of unsolicited mailings from companies you don’t already do business with. However, if you have a pre-existing business relationship with a company, they can still send you mailings. That makes sense to me and seems perfectly fair.

However, one of the biggest identity theft risks (or theft risks in general) are those cash advance checks your credit card company sends you. Another risk is that credit card offer your bank sent you. In order to opt out of those, you need to call each company and request that you be removed from their marketing list!

Optoutprescreen is great, but it’s only step one. Don’t forget step two.