Instead of credit monitoring, freeze your credit. It’s free to thaw it whenever you want. And you can look at a lot of details on the websites of the credit agencies including score. TransUnion offers the least before asking you to pay.
And many banks and credit card companies offer the same service for free.
Freeze it, it’ll still build but keep anyone from using it. And then when you want to use it you thaw it for however long and it’ll freeze right after.