November 2007

With the holidays coming up, you’re probably trying to figure out what gifts to give to all of the special people in your life. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re either a broke college student like me, or you have a special broke college student in your life. I’m here to help out people in the latter group.

As a broke grad student, I figured I could provide a little insight into the types of gifts a broke college student looks forward to getting this year. So without further ado, here’s the definitive list of gifts that will put a smile on every broke college student’s face.

1. Cash — This one is pretty self-explanatory.

2. More cash — Second verse, same as a first.

3. Even more cash — Same as 1 and 2 except there’s even more of it.

4. Mo’ money — It sounds cooler this way.

5. Hamiltons — Ten-dollar bills are nice.

6. Jacksons — Twenty-dollar bills are nicer.

7. It’s all about the Benjamins — Hundred-dollar bills will probably induce minor shock in your broke college student’s face before they’re able to smile.

8. A check — What??? I had to mix it up a little.

9. Did anyone mention…

Photo by quinn.anya

Yes, I’m implying that no matter how much broke college students pretend to enjoy getting another gift card to a store they don’t shop at anymore, they really just prefer money in its unadulterated form. This gives them the ultimate freedom to choose what to do with it. For example, I wouldn’t be able to pay back my student loans or contribute to my Roth IRA with a Best Buy gift card.

So before you run out and buy something your broke college student is going to return anyway, save yourself the hassle and give the gift of cash.

As I mentioned before, the only way to improve your spending habits is to figure out how much you’re spending. To track my expenses, I use a program like Quicken or Money, because most banks and credit cards allow you to automatically download transactions into these programs. The only problem is that these programs aren’t free. This is where Mint.com comes to the rescue!

Overview

If you’re interested in keeping track of your spending habits without having to pay for traditional finance software, then Mint is perfect for you. It allows you to track the activity of all of your checking, savings, and credit card accounts in one convenient location with a few added benefits.

Setting Up Mint

After completing the initial sign up to create your account, you are asked to enter the information for your various accounts. This is the same information you use to log in to your bank and credit card websites. If there’s one reason useful web applications like Mint will take a while to catch on, I think this is it — people still don’t trust computers. However, Mint assures that your information is as safe and secure as it is with a bank.

Upon successful authentication of your account info, Mint automatically imports the transactions, categorizes your income and expenditures, and then provides visual graphs and pie charts showing exactly how you’re spending your money. The entire process only takes a matter of minutes.

Spending Trends

Mint will graphically show you where your money is going by displaying a pie chart of your expenses divided into various categories. This allows you to quickly view your current spending trends and compare it to previous months.

One cool feature is the interactive pie chart. The pie chart displays general categories like “Food & Dining”, “Bills & Utilities”, and “Dining”. When you click on one of the slices, you are taken to a more detailed view of that category. For example, “Food and Dining” is broken down into “Groceries”, “Restaurants”, and “Fast Food”.

Transactions

While Mint tries to automatically categorize your transactions for you, it’s not perfect. You’ll most likely have to go back and fix some transactions to make the information completely accurate. You can do this on the Transactions page.

This page provides a convenient list of the transactions across all of your accounts. You can also search for specific transactions and view transactions within individual accounts. In addition to specifying a category for each transaction, Mint allows you to assign “Labels” to them as well. Labels are defined by you, and you can assign multiple labels to a transaction. This is similar to using labels in Gmail or tags in Flickr.

To get an accurate Spending Trends chart, you need to make sure your transactions are categorized properly. Mint makes this process easier by allowing you to assign rules that are applied to specific transaction names. For example, my cell phone bill was showing up as something weird, so I clicked on “Rename”. Then I typed in the correct name and checked a box to “always rename _____ as _____”. Setting up these rules will help Mint “learn” to categorize your common transactions correctly.

Ways to Save

Based on your current checking, savings, and credit card accounts, Mint will recommend ways that you can save money. For example, it may recommend a savings account with a higher interest rate or a credit card with a lower interest rate. While this may be helpful for some people, I haven’t found this feature very useful for me. In some cases, the offers aren’t accurate. Right now, it says that my high-yield savings account is at 0% APY (which isn’t true), and it recommends that I switch to one of their sponsors. I’m going to pass on this feature, but other people may find it useful.

It’s Always On

My favorite feature of Mint is that it’s always on. After the initial set up, Mint requires little effort to maintain. With Quicken, you still have manually run the program each time to update you information. With Mint, everything is completely automated. Mint automatically updates your accounts even when you’re not logged in. What does this mean to you? It saves you the time and hassle of doing it yourself, and it means that Mint can send you text message or email alerts to let you know about:

• Low balances in checking/savings accounts
• Credit card due dates
• High/unusual spending by category (i.e. Shopping, Dining, Gas)
• Bank/ATM fees and finance charges
• Large purchases
• Large deposits becoming available

You have full control over what alerts you receive and how your receive them in your profile settings.

Conclusion

Overall, I think Mint is great. Although it may not have as many features as a program like Quicken, it’s a great free way to track your finances. In addition, it’s really easy to set up, and it automatically keeps your finances up-to-date. If Mint had been available during my undergraduate years, I probably would have been able to avoid the two times I overdrew my checking account. This is a good thing — Mint the sort of program every college student should be using.

If someone asks you what the most common thing students forget to pack when heading off to college is, what would you say? Clothes hangers? Shower shoes? An extra set of sheets? My answer would be simple — a piggy bank.

Photo by Daniel Y. Go

A few years ago I was getting ready to head off to college. I had been exchanging emails with my roommate to figure out who was going to bring what. We had everything covered, or so I thought:

• TV — Check!
• Microwave — Right on!
• Mini fridge — Dude, we got one!
• Telephone — Sweet!
• Computers — I’ll take two!
• Nostalgia — Yes, please!

Looking back, I can’t believe I forgot to pack my piggy bank. How could I forgotten one of my favorite childhood pastimes? I don’t even want to know how many times I emptied my piggy bank, counted the change, and filled it back up.

I think we all have memories of our first piggy bank. I’ve been through a variety of piggy banks in my day — the coin cannon, the eerily cute bear, and the “OMG, it’s a giant pig!”-gy bank to name a few. However, the piggy bank I remember the most is the one that my family used the most — the old coffee can.

You can thank your parents for whether or not your piggy bank was actually a pig and whether or not there was actually any change in it. I was fortunate enough to have parents who taught me how to keep it stocked. Every bit of spare change ended up in that coffee can. I enjoyed watching the coffee can fill up to the top. It usually didn’t take long.

Having forgotten to pack my piggy bank for college, I’m not sure where all of my spare change went during my undergraduate years. Since I can’t travel back in time, I’m probably never going to find out. What I do know is that I’m glad I remembered to pack my piggy bank for grad school. In about two years, I collected over $100 in change in a lovely Gladware container. Considering it was just scraps of the cash I had spent, it was a nice chunk of change.

The best part of a piggy bank is that it holds money that you don’t even realize is missing. It’s kind of like a dog burying a bone and forgetting about it. But please, don’t forget about your piggy bank.

The best piggy banks don’t have to be shaped like pigs or banks. The important thing is that you have a common place to keep your spare change. You’ll be surprised at how much money ends up in there. Depending on how often you use cash, you could have anywhere from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars after a year.

So the next time you or someone you know is about to head off to college, please just remember one thing — you’re never too old for a piggy bank.

I signed up with CashCrate about three weeks ago, and since then I’ve earned a nice chunk of change to put into my loan fund. Like many others, I discovered CashCrate by coming across a glowing review about it on someone’s blog. They talk about how easy it is and how it’s their favorite way to make money online. I’m usually pretty skeptical about these things, but curiosity got the best of me this time. I decided that the only way really find out was to sign up and try it out myself. Could it really live up to all the rosy pictures people paint about it?

The Good

It’s not a scam. You really do get paid to do things. In this case, you complete offers. Some of them are free, and some of them aren’t. For some offers, you just have to complete a form with your contact info. For others you have to sign up for a free trial and remember to cancel it before it’s over, so you don’t get charged. With a $10 minimum monthly payout, it doesn’t take much effort to get there. If you have a credit card, completing two of the free trial offers is enough to put you over $10.

The Bad

It’s boring and tedious. Unless your lifelong dream is to become a professional offer completer, you’ll probably get really bored with completing these offers. There are ways to automate some of the repetitive tasks like filling in your contact info, but you’re still filling out form after form. For most people, this gets old really fast. Also, keep in mind that you have to be responsible enough to cancel the trial offers before they are over. Otherwise, you’ll get charged a fee which will most likely end up costing you a lot more money than you’ve earned.

The Ugly

Spam. You’re giving out your contact info to companies, so obviously, they’re going to be contacting you to try to sell stuff. As if we’re not already bombarded by enough solicitors, completing these offers will inevitably result in even more. Be prepared for it by using a separate email account to complete the offers.

These are just my impressions of CashCrate so far. I feel that they’re a lot more honest than the reviews I’ve found on other sites. The offers are easy to complete, but it’s tedious. Some people may be able to handle this, but others may not. I think the only way to find out is to try it out for yourself.